LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap.CU/.aiopyright No.. 
Shelf„P_^_.4 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



''4^' 



THE 



EYOLUTION OF AN EMPIRE 

A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE 

UNITED STATES 



BY 

MARY PLATT PARMELE 

Author of " France," " Germany;' " England; 
" Who? Whenf What?" 



1^ 



^"^- 






NEW YORK 

WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON 

59 Fifth Avenue 

1896 



All Bights Beserved 




ek,*\\\, 



Published and Copyrighted, 1896, 

BY 

WILLIAM BEVERLEY HARISON, 
59 Fifth Ave., New York City. 






THB MARTIN PRESS 

40 W. 13TH ST. 

NBW TORE 



PREFACE. 

With the growing complexity of life and 
events, it is becoming an impossible task 
for tlie memory to carry the increasing 
burden of details; and even if it succeeds 
in performing this feat, it is at the expense 
of a clear and intelligent comprehension of 
the meaning of the whole. We may suc- 
ceed in reducing the mental structure to a 
mere store-house. But if in achieving this 
the mind has lost the power to grasp, and to 
combine, its acquisitions have been dearly 
purchased. 

To compreliend is higher than to remem- 
her. The emphasis has long rested on the 
wrong word, and it is time it should be re- 
moved. 

In the meantime we load upon weak young 
shoulders, burdens we carry lightly because 
they have been the gradual accumulation of 
more years than our children have lived. 



PREFACE. 

We expect them to master the intricate 
details of a History, — its wars, its politics — 
its heroes, its tangled web of incident and 
of cause and effect; nothing must be neglect- 
ed, no date, no circumstance however 
trivial. And what is the result? An in- 
telligent, eager boy or girl, — confused, be- 
wildered in a labyrinth of unfamiliar names 
and events, fails to grasp the main lines, and 
— ''does not like history.''^ And if the same 
method be pursued in other branches, he 
''has no taste for study. '^^ Why? Simply 
because he has been studying, — not with 
a thinking mind, but with one overtaxed 
faculty. Memory^ intended to be the 
humble handmaiden of the higher faculties, 
has been enthroned. 

Of what use to know that Charles I. was 
beheaded in 1649, unless one understands 
the forces which led to this event ? In other 
words, the maximum of mental energy 
should be directed to the great lines of ten- 
dency, which make for righteousness and 
justice and human freedom. 

The names of the battles fought in work- 
ing out the grand design, the lists of heroes 
and of dates should be subordinated, and if 
the memory be insufficient, may be carried 



PREFACE. 

in the pocket. The study of history pursued 
in this way has a moral basis. There is an 
innate sense of justice and hatred of oppres- 
sion in the mind of the young. By apj)eal- 
ing to that, education has the quickening 
inliuences of the heart and of symx)athy, and 
the life of a Nation is studied as a Human 
Drama. 

The History of America should be an in- 
spiration, not a task. It ought to be known 
in its grand simjDle lines by every child in 
the Nation in words which would only fill 
two such pages as these. Let it be so ac- 
quired first in its utmost brevity, then 
enlarged, and enlarged again and again, 
gradually approaching to a nearer view of 
the multiplicity of detail. 

Pleased at finding new truths which fit 
precisely into those already familiar, there 
will be no difficulty in keeping alive the in- 
terest nor in remembering. It will be graft- 
ing on to the living, not on to the dead. 

This volume is much too long to do justice 
to the theory upon which it is written. 
There are no apologies offered for omissions, 
but rather regrets that circumstances com- 
pelled the introduction of details which con- 
fuse the simplicity of the narrative. It may 



PREFACE. 

serve, however, to point the way to what, it 
seems to the writer, must be the method of 
the future 

To the general reader it is offered as a 
short and simple story of the great Empire 
in the Western Hemisphere. 

ISTew York, M. P. 

July 6, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 

Chaptek I. 

PAGE 

The Age of Discovery —Easier Route to India tlie 
Problem of the Age— Prevailing Beliefs Regarding 
the Earth and Universe — Christopher Columbus.. 1 

Chapter II. 

The Council at Salamanca — Columbus at Rabida — 
Ferdinand and Isabella Consent to Equip a Fleet. 10 

Chapter III. 

Voyage from Palos on the "Sea of Darkness" — 
Arrival at San Salvador — The Triumph — Sorrows 
and Death of the Discoverer — Amerigo Vespucci. 19 

Chapter IV. 

The ''New World" an Old World— Its Prehistoric 
Races — Conjectures Regarding Origin of Aztecs, 
Incas and Mound Builders — The North American 
Indians — Discoveries of The Cabots —Balboa — 
Magellan — Verazzaui — Cartier — De Soto— 
Cabrillo — Frobisher — Sir Francis Drake — 
Founding of St. Augustine 27 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter V. 

PAGE 

Sir Walter Raleigh's Attempts at Colonization— Be- 
ginning of Colonial Life in America — The London 
Company— Settling of Jamestown — John Smith — 
Negro Slavery Planted in America — Massacre by 
Indians— Dissolution of London Company— 
Bacon's Rebellion _ 38 

Chapter VI. 
French Colonization and Discoveries in the North — 
Henry Hudson Ascends "Manhattan" River — 
Foundation of the Dutch Claim in America- 
Persecution of Puritans in England— Transforma- 
tion of Northeast portion of Virginia into New 
England— New Plymouth Company — Arrival of 
Mayflower — Hardships Endured — Form of Gov- 
ernment — Massachusetts Bay Company — New 
Colony at Salem - First Thanksgiving Dinner — 
Harvard College — Roger "Williams Banished — 
Beginnings of Rhode Island — Maine — New Hamp- 
shire — Connecticut _ 48 

Chapter VII. 

The Dutch in the New Netherlands— New Amsterdam 
— Duke of York Takes Possession of Territory 
Claimed by Holland - New York — The Jerseys — 
Delaware — Maryland — The Carolinas — Pennsyl- 
vania— Georgia— Oglethorpe's Experiment 59 

Chapter VIII. 
French Dominion Extending in America — Louisiana — 
King William's War— Queen Anne's War — King 
George's War — Navigation Act Massachusetts 
Defiant — Sir Edmund Andros — The Charter Oak 
— The Beginnings of Patriotism 68 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter IX. 

PAGE 

Colonial Governments — Prevailing Social and Intellec- 
tual Conditions — Negro Slavery — Indentured Ap- 
prentices 75 

Chapter X. 

The Ohio Company — Governor Dinwiddie and George 
Washington — General Braddock's Defeat— Dis- 
persing of the French Acadians — British Vic- 
tories — Quebec — Treaty at Paris 81 

Chapter XI. 

Colonists Asked to Pay for a War in Their Behalf ! — 
The Stamp Act — Rebellion — Patrick Henry — 
Franklin — William Pitt — Stamp Act Repealed — 
Another Tax upon Glass, Paper and Tea— The 
Authority of Parliament — Constitutional Rights — 
Firm Attitude of Colonists — Cheap Tea — Its Fate 
— Port of Boston Closed — General Gage — Whigs — 
Tories 88 

Chapter XII. 

First Colonial Congress — Effect of Its Action in Eng- 
land — Pitt and Franklin in the House of Commons 
— Authority of King to be Maintained 99 

Chapter XIII. 

Preparation for War — Lexington — Paul Revere — 
Second Continental Congress — Howe, Clinton and 
Burgoyne Arrive — Bunker Hill — Washington in 
Command — British in Charleston Harbor — Moul- 
trie at Sullivan's Island — Kentucky — Washing- 
ton's Management Criticised— British Evacuate 
Boston 105 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter XIV. 

PAGE 

Declaration of Independence — Hessian Mercenaries — 
Washington's Army in Retreat — Discouragement 
— Crossing the Delaware — Victories at Trenton 
and Princeton — Winter at Morristown — La 
Fayette— Philadelphia Occupied by the British — 
Burgoyne's Defeat and Surrender — Washington at 
Valley Forge — Overtures from Great Britain — 
French Alliance — Continental Money — Benedict 
Arnold — Andrd and Hale 115 

Chapter XV. 

Surrender of Cornwallis — Independence of United 
States Acknowledged by Great Britain— Treaty 
at Versailles — An Infant Republic — Constitution 
Adopted — Form of Government — George Wash- 
ington, First President 127 

Chapter XVI. 

National Debt — Financial Management of Alexander 
Hamilton — French Revolution — Jay's Treaty 138 

Chapter XVII. 

Federalists and Republicans — War of Opinions — The 
Cotton Gin — John Adams President — Alien and 
Sedition Laws— Thomas Jefferson President 141 

Chapter XVIII. 

Death of Washington — Purchase of Louisiana — 
French Spoliation Claims — Tripoli Bombarded — 
War Between France and England — Milan and 
Berlin Decrees — Right of Search — Aaron Burr — 
Death of Hamilton — First Steamboat 149 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter XIX. 

PAGE 

Territorial Development — Life in the Interior — 
Tecumseli and the Indian Confederacy — Tippe- 
canoe — War of 1812 — Hull Surrenders Detroit — 
Naval Victories 158 

Chapter XX. 

Indians' Last Struggle for their Continent — Massacre 
by British Allies — General Harrison — Lawrence — 
Battle of Lake Erie — Proctor's Defeat by Harrison 
— Death of Tecumseh — Battle of Plattsburg — 
Waterloo — Admiral Cockburn — Burning of Wash- 
ington — Andrew Jackson — Battle of New Orleans 
— Treaty of Peace — James Monroe President ..... 168 

Chapter XXL 

Florida purchased — Missouri Compromise — Monroe 
Doctrine— Erie Canal — John Quincy Adams — 
La Fayette's Visit 177 

Chapter XXII. 

The Tariff — Andrew Jackson President — Nullification 
— Clay Compromise— The National Bank — Delu- 
sive Prosperity — Martin Van Buren Elected — 
Financial Ruin — Removal of Indians to Reserva- 
tions— Seminole War — Sub Treasury Bill — Will- 
iam Henry Harrison's Inauguration — Ashburton 
Treaty 185 

Chapter XXIII. 

Death of President Harrison — John Tyler — Dorr's 
Rebellion — The Mormons — Texan Independence 
— Proposed Annexation — Magnetic Telegraph — 
James K. Polk Elected — Sentiment at the North — 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Growth — First Locomotive — Mexican Boundary 
Question — War with Mexico — Victories— City of 
Mexico occupied — Capture of California. _ 195 

Chapter XXIV. 

Territory Ceded by Mexico — Treaty Concerning North 
western Boundary — Wilmot Proviso — President 
Taylor's Inauguration and Death — Millard Fill- 
more — Compromise of 1850— Fugitive Slave Law — 
Franklin Pierce — Uncle Tom's Cabin — Develop- 
ment - - - - 206 

Chapter XXV. 

Republican Party — James Buchanan Elected — Dred 
Scott Decision — Kansas a Free State — John Brown 
at Harper's Ferry 217 

Chapter XXVI. 

Conditions North and South — Abraham Lincoln Elec- 
ted — Secession — A Southern Confederacy — Fort 
Sumter. - 225 

Chapter XXVII. 

Call for Troops — Battle of Bull Run — Contrabands — 
Mason and Slidell — Merrimac and Monitor — Far- 
ragut's Designs — U. S. Grant — Fort Donelson — 
Victories 235 

Chapter XXVIII. 

Gen. Robert E. Lee — Battles before Richmond — Call 
for 600,000 more Troops — Farragut's Ascent of the 
Mississippi — Antietam — Lincoln's offer of Gradual 
Emancipation — Slavery to Exist no more 245 



CONTENTS. 
Chapter XXIX. 

PAGE 

Chancellorsville — Gettysburg — Vicksburg — Lookout 
Mountain— Grant in Command — The Wilderness 
— Sherman's March — Atlanta — Savannah — Grant's 
Advance on Richmond — Thomas destroys Hood's 
Army — Richmond occupied — Lee's Surrender — 
Peace — Assassination of Lincoln — Army dis- 
banded — National Clemency — Maximilian in Mex- 
ico 256 

Chapter XXX. 

Reconstruction— Civil Rights Bill — President Im- 
peached — General Pardon — Conditions — The Paci- 
fic Road — Grant Elected President — Financial 
Panic — Arbitration and Alabama Claims 268 

Chapter XXXL 

The Centennial — International Exhibition — Hayes 
President — James Garfield — His Assassination — 
Chester Alan Arthur — The Tariff— James G. 
Blaine — The New West — Silver an Issue — Trusts 
— Tendency to Life in Cities — Spiritual Forces at 
Work — The Future and the Hope of America 282 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER I. 



The light which illumines the Fifteenth 
Century, is the light of geographical dis- 
covery. 

It was an age when men's minds were 
strangely stirred with a desire to extend the 
frontiers of knowledge regarding the World 
they inhabited, — and Portugal was the 
centre of this new enthusiasm. 

The shores of the Mediterranean and the 
lands extending east and north had long been 
sufficient for humanity. But in the fulness 
of time there had come an expansion, a con- 
scious need of more space. 

That land known by the all-embracing 
name of India^ had been for ages the treas- 
ure-house of the World. The nations of 
antiquity, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Assyri- 
ans and Arabians, had each in turn fattened 



2 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

upon its inexhaustible products. In 1275 
A.D. Marco Polo, a Venetian traveller, wrote 
dazzling descriptions of what his eyes had 
seen in this mysterious land. It was teem- 
ing with treasures which Europe must and 
would have. But its gold, ivory, costly 
silks, shawls, perfumes, spices, and all its 
priceless products, must be carried to the 
Red Sea by caravan, — thence on the backs 
of camels across the desert to the Nile, 
— whence they were transported through 
Egypt, and finally conveyed in "Argosies, 
with portly sail," to the Merchant of Venice, 
Genoa and Florence. 

These three cities were the gates through 
which this opulent stream flowed into 
Europe. They had grown into rich and 
powerful States by means of this lucrative 
commerce, so that India had become but 
another name for fabulous success. 

A quicker and a cheaper route to India^ 
— was the problem of the age. The nation 
which should solve it, would divert this 
golden tide of prosperity from the Italian 
Republics to its own shores. 

Such was the magnet, which was drawing 
men's minds, and such the attraction which 
gave to maritime discovery a practical aim, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 3 

and compelling purpose; the nations all vy- 
ing with each other in first reaching the 
prize. 

Prince Henry of Portugal conceived the 
idea that by following the coast of Africa, 
an opening might be found through which 
sliijDs could pass to the other side; or, — fail- 
ing in that, that the Continent might be 
circumnavigated. Few symjpathized with a 
scheme so daring as this last, for would they 
not have to j)ass through the torrid zone ? 
which was, as every one knew, a region of 
fires and of heat so fierce, that the very 
waters boiled. And besides, had not Pto- 
lemy said that the African Continent ex- 
tended down to the southern extremity 
of the earth ? — and that it there was joined 
to its Asiatic sister, standing an everlasting 
barrier to ships ? 

But Prince Henry's adventurous little 
crafts crept cautiously farther and farther 
down the coast. The equator was at last 
passed and divested of its fanciful terrors. 
Portugal became the acknowledged leader 
in discovery. Its importance increased and 
it arose to the first rank among the King- 
doms of Europe. Prince Henry' s dream was 
realized, but long after his death, when in 



4 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

1500 A.D. Yasco de Gam a rounded tlie Cape 
of Good Hope, and India was reached by an 
ocean pathway. 

Before this event, while Portuguese ships 
were still groping cautiously down the 
African coast, an obscure man was conceiv- 
ing a new and daring solution of the problem. 

The Atlantic ocean, or as they called it ^ 'Sea 
of Darkness," stretched away towards the 
west, an untravelled waste. The sun went 
down upon a region of awful mystery. None 
so hardy as to attempt to find out its secrets. 
The maps and charts of that day pictured 
hideous monsters guarding this region of 
horrors. One represented the bony, gnarled 
hand of Satan, rising out of the waters ready 
to seize ships which should pass those limits 
upon the Sea of Darkness. 

So the expanding life within was pressing 
outward, through a mass of superstition and 
of misconception. A few daring thinkers in 
ancient times had said that the Earth was a 
sphere. But practical and reasonable men 
knew the folly of a theory which would 
compel our antipodes *'to walk upon their 
heads with their feet dangling in the air, ' ' in 
a land where the ' ' snow, hail and rain fell up- 
wards. ' ' So this foolish belief hid away from 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

condemnation and ridicule, lurking in dark 
places, while ordinary and sensible people 
rested content with an illimitable plane, 
bounded by a limitless ocean. 

While there might have been some diver- 
sity of opinion regarding the shape of the 
World, upon another and more important 
matter all were agreed. The earth was the 
centre of the universe, around which re- 
volved the Sun, Moon, planets and constel- 
lations. 

It is amazing and indeed appalling to con- 
template the enormous expenditure of intel- 
lectual power and even of genius, in con- 
structing a system Avliich should bring all 
the observed phenomena of the Universe into 
harmony with — one stupendous error ! Did 
the movements of the stars seem to conflict 
with the geocentric fact, it was explained by 
a marvellously constructed system of what 
were called epicycles, which safely bridged 
every difficulty. 

Ptolemy had elaborated this system in the 
year 150 a.d., based upon the teachings of 
Hipparchus, two centuries earlier. Later 
astronomers had made additions to it, until 
it had become an ingenius accretion of scien- 
tific subterfuges, and so difficult to compre- 



6 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

hend tliat there is little wonder the intellects 
of the time grew preternaturally sharpened 
in mastering its intricacies. In the latter 
part of the Fifteenth Century it was still 
venerated, after having been for thirteen 
hundred years a lamp to the stumbling feet 
of poor humanity. 

There was at that time living in Prus- 
sia, a boy at whose touch fifty years later 
this venerable pile would crumble to ashes. 
Copernicus died in 1543, leaving to the 
world the strangest legacy ever known. 
(His work was published after his death that 
same year.) When he placed the Sun in the 
centre of our solar system, and sent the 
usurping earth into the humble orbit of a 
satellite, everything fell into place as if by 
magic. There was no need of epicycle, nor 
of ingenious casuistry to explain a theory 
which proved itself every hour in a way 
convincing and irresistible. 

But at the time we are now considering, 
this illumination had not come. In this 
twilight of knowledge streaked with a few 
rays of the coming dawn, CHRISTOPHER 
COL UMB US, a Genoese mariner, naviga- 
tor and adventurer, was led by circumstances 
to Portugal. The current enthusiasm awoke 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

answering vibrations in liis soul. Cosmo- 
graphical study had been his j)assion from 
his childhood. Every physical theory of 
antiquity, every ascertained truth was fa- 
miliar to him. 

He pondered over old charts and "as he 
mused the fire burned." The conviction 
grew upon him that the earth was a sphere: 
— and in that case the way to the east was 
by the loest! By taking a course due west, 
a ship must inevitabl}^ come soon uj)on the 
eastern shores of tliat fabled land described 
by Marco Polo. 

The way to India, lay not across the Con- 
tinent of Asia — nor around that of Africa — 
but through the few hundreds of leagues of 
ocean, which without doubt on its eastern 
side washed the shores of Tartary. 

As he dwelt upon this new and startling 
conception, it grew into noon-day clearness. 
To his ardent mind it was not conjecture, 
but fact. Enthusiastic, imaginative, in- 
tensely religious, the predestined discoverer 
of an unknown world consecrated his life 
to the realizing of his dream, and solemnly 
dedicated the boundless wealth it must bring 
him, to the recovering of the Holy Sepul- 
chre ! 



8 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

It was a strange mixture of truth and 
error. He little imagined that on the other 
side of that waste of ocean there lay a great 
sleeping world, its head pillowed on the 
eternal Arctic snows, its feet in the Southern 
Pacific, 9,000 miles away. That while Egyp- 
tian, Greek, and Roman civilizations had 
come and gone, it had peacefully slept. 
When Europe in its barbaric infancy had 
listened to the Divine message of Christ, it 
had not stirred. Nor yet, as she grew old 
and wrinkled and seamed and scarred with 
iniquity, Avas the long sleep broken. If, as 
is believed, the Northmen came in the year 
1000 A.D. (led by Leif, the son of Eric) and 
dwelt for a few years upon the vine-clad 
shores of Narragansett Bay, there was no 
thrill of awakening life in the slumbering 
Continent. 

But now, the time had come. The cruel, 
wicked old world deluged with tears and 
blood was not to be the scene of humanity' s 
highest development. 

There has been a curious significance in 
some epoch-making names, — Michael An- 
gelo — Raphael — Leonardo da Yinci — Napo- 
leon — are strangely suggestive; and to this 
list may be added — Christopher Columbus. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 



Ohristoplier^ with its Divine suggestion, 
and Columbo — the dove, — sent out over the 
waste of water to discover a new world 
which perhaps shall survive the wreck of 
the old. 



CHAPTER II. 

Theee are many names linked with discov- 
ery, which shine as beacon-lights in history. 
But what gives to that of Cliristoplier Co- 
lumbus such unique splendor, is not alone 
the grandeur of what he accomiDlished, but 
— the fact that it was based upon a precon- 
ceived theory, perfectly true in princij^le. 
He did not sail blindly out into that Sea of 
Darkness impelled by love of adventure, 
and then come unexpectedly upon a Conti- 
nent. The man of action achieved by heroic 
endeavor what the man of thought had first 
planned in the closet. His penetrating ge- 
nius had the power to grasp and combine 
the phenomena of the external world, and 
to draw from them conclusions far-reaching 
and true. These conclusions once grasped 
remained in his mind rock-ribbed realities, 
upon which storms of discouragement, per- 
secution, and ridicule, beat for years in vain. 

The making of maps seems not to have 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 11 

been a bad sort of occupation in that age of 
geographical enthusiasm ; for we hear of 
Yespucius, paying $500 for a map of the 
world; and a curiously inaccurate thing it 
must have been, with no Cape of Good Hope, 
and no American Continent. 

This was the occupation by which Colum- 
bus earned a scanty living in Lisbon, while 
the growing thought was taking possession 
of him, and the fire was kindling in his soul. 
It is quite probable that a friendship) was 
commenced at this time between the two 
men whose names were destined to be for- 
ever so strangely associated. 

There is contagion in a splendid enthusi- 
asm. His own absolute belief in his project 
compelled people to listen to Columbus, and 
even bridged the gulf between him and the 
throne of Spain. Ferdinand smiled indul- 
gently as he listened to plans for bestowing 
wealth and kingdoms. The jirize was allur- 
ing. A quick route to India would bring 
enormous reward. He felt almost tempted 
to venture something in such a lottery. The 
chance had been lost to Genoa and to Portu- 
gal, but it might be offered to them again. 
Genoa's prosperity was rudely menaced by 
all these efforts to reach India by sea; — and 



12 HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Portugal was ambitious to keep her place in 
the lead of discovery. All these things 
passed through the unimpassioned mind of 
Ferdinand as he coolly weighed the visionary 
promises of the Genoese. But Isabella's soul 
was deeply stirred by the eloquence of this 
enthusiast, who talked of carrying the Holy 
Faith into the darkened east. To win the 
Great Khan of Tartary to the Cross, was 
worth venturing much. 

Talavera, the Queen's father confessor, 
warily urged that she take advice before act- 
ing in a matter so important. At his sugges- 
tion a Junta or Council of Cosmographers 
was invited to meet and listen to what 
Columbus had to say, and then to determine 
whether his plan was worth considering. 

To the childlike Columbus it seemed, when 
summoned to meet the learned Council at 
Salamanca, (1486, ) that the end was at hand. 
He had but to explain, in order to convince. 
He looked with eager confidence into the 
faces of cosmographers, astronomers, and 
learned prelates, as he disclosed his project, 
and the convincing truths upon which it was 
based. Talavera — his evil genius then and 
always — presided over their deliberations. 
They listened to this visionary adventurer, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 13 

wIlo talked so lightly of overthrowing the 
beliefs of centuries. Generations of men 
wise in nautical science had preceded him. 
Was it probable they could have overlooked 
such a truth, if it was a truth? A new 
thought, if it be revolutionary, is an insult 
to the learning of a thousand years. He was 
guilty not so much of building up a new be- 
lief, — as of tearing down the old. 

" Even admitting the earth to be round " 
said one, ' ' in that case the ships could 
never return. For in coming back, would 
they not have to climb all the way up a hill ? 
And what winds could enable them to do 
that?" 

The fathers of the Church were cited, and 
scriptures quoted in proof that the earth is 
a plane ; Columbus saw he was in danger 
not alone of defeat, but even of charges of 
heresy. 

The Junta decided that ''the project was 
vain and impossihle.^^ Ferdinand, who had 
never been in sympathy with it, now dis- 
missed it; and even Isabella realized she must 
abandon a dream, against which science and 
religion joined hands. 

But Columbus was not without advocates. 
A small minority of the Council believed in 



14 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

him. He rallied from this defeat. His elo- 
quence, his lofty enthusiasm for carrying 
the Cross into heathen Cathay (northern 
part of China) had an irresistible charm for 
Isabella. Hope revived, and then came the 
Avar with the Moors, which swept him and 
his project into oblivion; Columbus waiting 
patiently for the fresh consideration prom- 
ised, after the war should have concluded. 
But, alas for those who put their trust in 
Princes ! When peace came, the treasury 
was drained, and the cool, calculating Fer- 
dinand, was in no mood to equip a fleet, for 
"this pauper pilot, promising rich realms." 

Seven years had thus been spent in vain ef- 
fort. Columbus' hair had whitened, his step 
had grown slow and faltering. The few who 
had shared his enthusiasm had grown cold. 
Poverty and defeat are poor advocates of a 
waning cause. People looked pityingly af- 
ter him, children touched their foreheads 
and smiled as he passed slowly on the street. 
But his intrepid soul knew no defeat. He 
was planning fresh efforts. He would aban- 
don this land which for seven years had 
lured him with false hopes. 

Genoa had declined the undertaking. 
Portugal had deceived him with promises, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 

then basely using his own charts and 
plans, had secretly sent out a ship to test 
their truth. Spain had stolen from him 
^ve of the best years of his waning life. He 
had sent his brother three years ago to con- 
fer with Henry YII of England, and Bar- 
tholomew (who had been captured by pi- 
rates) had not been heard from since. 
To France should be offered the glory of this 
enterprise! 

History aifords few pictures as striking as 
this old man, humiliated by unpaid bills for 
food and clothing, footsore, weary, knock- 
ing at the gate of the Monastery at Rabida, 
and asking for bread and shelter; the 
humble package he carried, containing at 
that moment the key to wealth immeasurable 
— charts and plans which within a year 
would bestow a Hemisjpliere! 

This hour of deepest defeat saved him to 
Spain. It is part of this strange romance, 
that the prior of the Monastery, had been 
before Talavera the Father Confessor to Isa- 
bella; — a man loved and revered by her. 
They talked far into the night. His interest 
growing more and more profound in the 
story of Columbus, whom he imjjlored to 
wait; to abide patiently with him while he 



IG HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

acquainted the Queen with his purpose of 
leaving Spain. 

The prior wrote to Isabella — representing 
the pity and the shame of permitting such 
an opportunity to be enjoyed by France. 
Columbus waited at Rabida while letters 
passed and repassed. Hopes were fanned 
into life, only to be extinguished again, and 
then to be rekindled. 

Finally he mounted his mule and turned 
his face resolutely toward France. At this 
very moment the generous Queen had re- 
solved. She would equip the expedition 
herself. " The enterprise is mine," she said 
I)roudly. "I undertake it for Castile! — " 
A royal messenger was dispatched to over- 
take Columbus, inviting him to come to the 
Court, and sending an ample sum to meet 
the expense of his journey and outfit. 

i)id they expect him to come as an humble 
suj)pliant, ready to make any concession for 
royal favor ? If so they were mistaken. Un- 
daunted by misfortunes, — with a lofty faith 
in what he had to confer, Columbus named 
his conditions, proudly and firmly. He must 
be made Admiral of the seas, and Viceroy of 
the lands he is about to discover. He must 
have one-tenth of the profits of the expedition 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 17 

—and these honors and privileges must be 
forever hereditary in his family. 

Spanish Grandees listened indignantly 
to these arrogant demands from a half- 
crazy foreign adventurer, in thread-bare 
coat. 

Negotiations were broken off, Columbus 
proudly refusing to abate his conditions one 
jot again turned his face toward France. 

But others beside Talavera were counsel- 
ing the King and Queen. They urged the 
folly of allowing such an opportunity to be 
lost to Spain, and to go to France; while the 
64,000 dollars required to equip the fleet, 
was, after all, a trifle, compared with the 
possible results. (The force of this reason- 
ing was proved a generation later, when the 
one surviving ship of Magellan' s expedition 
returned laden with spices from Molucca, 
which when sold realized a sum sufficient to 
pay the whole cost of the expedition and to 
leave a handsome profit besides.) And as 
for the honors, if he did not succeed he 
would not wear them; and if he did, — he 
deserved them. 

Isabella glad to be sustained dispatched 
another messenger to recall Columbus, and 
again he returned; this time, to be invested 



18 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

with all tlie honors and clothed with all the 
authority he had claimed. 

As Columbus journeyed toward Palos, he 
bore with him strange credentials — letters 
addressed to Kublai-Kahn and other oriental 
Kings (the names left in blank) telling these 
yet-undiscovered-potentates, of the affec- 
tion entertained for them by their Si^anish 
Majesties, their joy at their peace and pros- 
perity, and asking them to receive Christo- 
pher Columbus, whom they sent to deliver 
this message of love. A delicious bit of 
diplomatic fiction which is strange reading 
in the light of this closing Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. 



CHAPTER III. 

The most memorable voyage ever made 
was commenced and ended on Friday. In 
about thirty-six days, was accomplished 
what Columbus had been nearly twenty 
years in projecting."^ 

On the 3d of August 1492, the three 
caravels, Santa-Maria, Pinta, and Nina, 
sailed from Palos. One hundred and twen- 
ty men who had with difficulty been per- 
suaded to venture upon a voyage so hazard- 
ous and unprecedented, bade farewell to 
weeping friends. 

Never were seas so peaceful, nor skies so 
friendly; yet as they were carried farther 
and farther into the unknown, vague terrors 
possessed them. Hitherto ships had kept 
near to the land. But even the gentle winds 
seemed to carry them now with a fatal 
facility, as if drawing them into a region 
from whence there was no return; and when 



* See Chronology, in Supplement. 



20 HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

the magnetic needle no longer pointed to 
the north star, a phenomenon now perfectly 
understood, Columbus was obliged to in- 
vent explanations for what seemed even to 
himself sinister and unaccountable. 

Whether his impatient and mutinous fol- 
lowers would really have thrown him into 
the sea after the thirty-third day, it is im- 
possible to say. But the Hoating branch of 
thorn with fresh berries, was a blessed mes- 
senger of hope; quickly confirmed by birds 
flying toward the southwest. 

These birds altered the course of history. 
Had Columbus followed his own unerring 
instincts, and steadily kept his course due 
west, as he intended to do, the little fleet 
would have come directly upon the coast of 
Florida, and Spanish dominion from the 
first Avould have been established upon the 
Continent of North America. 

It was his yielding his own judgment to 
others and following the birds to the south- 
west, which prevented him from being the 
first to reach the Western Continent, and 
which led him instead into the broken surface 
of that archipelago in the western ocean, 
which was thereafter the basis of Spanish 
Dominion in the new World. 



HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 21 

But Columbus did not dream it was a 
''New World," upon which he planted the 
cross and the colors of Sj^ain on that October 
morning, 1492. He supposed of course it 
was the Asiatic coast; and the dark-skinned 
natives who furtively and timorously watch- 
ed the dazzling beings who had come down 
to them from the skies, these he naturally 
called, Indians. He had little doubt they 
would soon aid him in finding his way 
to the great populous cities which must be 
near. 

Marco Polo's book was his guide in this 
new and strange region, which he soon dis- 
covered was not the mainland. 

In Cuba^ the largest of the Islands, he joy- 
fully recognized the Cipango^ or Japan^ of 
that book of marvels; and when in the soft 
melodious speech of the natives he heard the 
word "Cubanaca72," (meaning beyond Cuba) 
he was sure that the great ''Kublai-Khan" 
dwelt in the region to which they pointed, 
and he should soon see him face to face, and 
deliver his letter from the King and Queen! 

His winged imagination had flown over a 
great Continent, and then over 9000 miles of 
ocean beyond. One-half the circumference 
of the globe lay between him and Japan. 



22 HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

But if the round world was greater than he 
knew, so was his discovery ! 

Once the first thread has spanned the 
abyss, it is easy to send after it cords, — and 
then cables, — and finally iron pathways. 
Columbus had spanned the gulf of darkness 
and ignorance; — and now it would require 
daring, but no genius, for Yespucius, and 
the Cabots, Balboas and Magellans to fol- 
low, and then to strengthen and extend 
the bridge for the feet of the nations to 
tread. 

It would be pleasant to tell of rewards 
rich and ample — of generous recognition by 
the Nation and of grateful Sovereigns load- 
ing him with honors, and only sunset-splen- 
dors after a troubled day. But the history 
of heroes, is not written in that way. Great 
souls do not float down life' s stream upon 
beds of flowery ease; and Columbus must be 
greatest of all, if greatness be measured by 
sorrows. 

Envy, — suspicion, — malice, — vindictive 
hate, — cruel misrepresentation, — all that 
these can inflict Avere his to bear. Unrea- 
sonable and rapacious followers demanding 
immediate realization of extravagant hopes, 
which too they must obtain without effort. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 23 

Higlily wrought expectation in Spain whicli 
must not be disappointed. A gentle, help- 
less native race, whom he believed he 
had a God-given mission to save, and 
yet from whom he must exact toil and 
tribute to meet the expectations of his Sov- 
ereigns, and whom he was helpless to i^ro- 
tect from the cruel civilization he had 
brought to their shores. 

No gentler savages ever idled in the sun. 
Unconscious of evil as they were of toil, 
seemingly exempt in their Paradise from 
the universal curse. Timid as fawns, con- 
fiding as children, equally unconscious of 
the value of the gems they wore on their 
naked persons, and of the fierce cuj^idity 
they excited. But they were to learn their 
cruel lesson quickly. Soon we hear them 
plaintively asking these superior beings, — 
' ' when they are going back to their home 
in the skies? " In four years a third of this 
gentle race had perished. One of them 
when offered consolation by a priest as he 
was dying, asked if there were any Span- 
iards in his Heaven; and when told there 
were, said — then he would rather go to Hell. 

A few words linger in our speech as me- 
morials of this hapless race. 



24 HISTORY OF THE tlKlTEB STATES. 

Hamac. — A net stretclied across poles in 
wliicli they slept. 

Urican. — The fierce tempe^sts which swept 
their islands. 

Tabaco. — The weed they smoked, and 

Caniba. — A word used in speaking of 
their man-eating neighbors, the Caribs. 

If those Caravels had brought to our 
shores such men as came over in the May- 
flower 128 years later, the slumbering Con- 
tinent would have had a different awaken- 
ing. The contrasting results of planting 
mce and mrtue in virgin soil, were never 
before so obvious. Both have borne and 
are still bearing, abundant and convincing- 
harvests. 

It may be expecting too much of one man, 
that he should be equally great as discoverer, 
— law-giver, and ruler of a Province. Colum- 
bus may not always have acted with perfect 
wisdom. But he did not deserve to be the 
victim of mutinies, treacheries and conspira- 
cies, to have every misfortune in the Colony 
laid to his charge ; enemies in Spain eagerly 
spreading misrepresentations from the West 
Indies, undermining him in public estima- 
tion and with his Sovereigns. To a man con- 
scious of his own lofty aims what greater 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 25 

suffering could be inflicted? There is ter- 
rible vitality in slander. The dragons-teeth 
sown at that time have borne harvests ever 
since. Even as late as his fourth Centen- 
nial in 1892, there was fresh effort to de- 
tract from the glory of his name and 
achievement. 

There was a brief triumph when Columbus 
returned and was received by his Sovereigns 
under a golden canopy and with royal hon- 
ors ; its recollection only to be obliterated 
by another return, a few years later, loaded 
with irons like a common criminal. In vain 
did royal hands remove the manacles, and 
try to soothe his outraged spirit. The iron 
had entered into his soul. He could never 
forget the ignominy which had been put 
upon him, and kept the chains to be placed 
in his coffin as a memorial of a grateful 
country. 

There was a sublimity in his misfortunes 
which matched the magnitude of his work. 
A Homer well-fed and laurel-crowned, would 
be a less heroic figure, than a Homer blind 
and begging bread. And so there is a tragic 
grandeur in Columbus, dying in poverty 
and neglect at Valladolid (May 20th, 1506) 
unconscious of his magnificent gift to the 



26 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

world, and believing lie had outlived his 
fame. 

If his dying eyes fixed on those cruel 
chains hanging upon the wall, could have 
had prophetic vision of a grand pageant in 
New York Harbor four centuries hence, 
when all the nations of Europe were as- 
sembled to pay homage to his name, if he 
could have beheld the ' ' White City by the 
Lake" that evanescent creation of genius 
which sprang into existence as if by Magi- 
cian's Wand to do him honor, he would 
have seen that the final verdict of the world 
is just. 

Amerigo Vespucci^ a friend and comrade 
of Columbus, guided by the great navigator's 
own maps and charts visited the South 
American coast in 1499 — (one year after 
Columbus). He wrote a fascinating descrip- 
tion of what he saw. Authorshij) is not 
often too richly rewarded. One Waldsee- 
Muller, a German geographer, seems to have 
placed these unearned and unsought honors 
upon the Florentine writer, by suggesting 
that the new land be named after him. And 
so it is, that millions of people pay Yespu- 
cius undeserved tribute, every hour, in call- 
ing themselves Americans. / 



CHAPTER lY. 

The wall of mystery encircling the West- 
ern Continent liad been broken down, and 
little streams of European civilization began 
to press in here and there, increasing in vol- 
ume, and destined in time to inundate the 
land. 

The New World which was now to be 
brought out of its hiding place, was in fact, 
a very Old World. It bore hoary secrets in its 
bosom, which have ever since baffled the curi- 
osity of man. At the time of its discovery, 
it contained two races, with anomalous but 
developed social and political systems. The 
Aztecs occupied a vast empire in Mexico, 
stretching from ocean to ocean, in the south- 
ern extremity of North America, and the 
"Children of the Sun" in Peru, the land of 
the Incas, another empire nearly as large on 
the western coast of South America. 

Mildness and ferocity, refinements and bar- 
barities were strangely mingled in both. 



28 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Temples blazing with gold and jewels were 
sliambles, where thousands of human vic- 
tims were yearly sacrificed to their deities 
by a people singularly gentle and peaceful 
in their instincts, and simple and just in 
their government and laws. Amid incon- 
gruous refinements, fruits, fiowers, perfumes 
and joyous outbursts of song and dance, the 
victim was bound to the sacrificial stone, 
his breast cut open, his heart torn out, and 
bleeding and almost j)alpitating, devoured 
by the worshippers. 

But the existence of the rudiments of as- 
tronomy, knowledge of the cause of eclipses, 
the construction of the sun-dial, and divi- 
sions of time, identical with those in the 
east, all pointed to some remote connection 
with the early civilizations of Asia. 

Researches have shown that the *'Tol- 
tecs, ' ' — a race immediately preceding the Az- 
tecs, — had a civilization of a higher type than 
they, and that in proportion with the in- 
crease in antiquity, there is corresponding 
advance in character of remains. This is 
ground for believing that there was a highly 
developed people at a time immeasurably 
remote, ux)on whom were superimposed the 
sombre cruelties of lower races. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 29 

That these people should have possessed 
astronomical knowledge sufficiently accurate 
to estimate the length of the year to an in- 
appreciable fraction is as accountable, as 
that sculptured elephants should be found 
upon their temples; an animal which has 
never existed in the Western Hemisphere. 
For a man in solitary confinement from in- 
fancy, to evolve a knowledge of arbitrary 
systems and customs, would be no less of a 
miracle, and would lead us to believe he 
must at some time, and in some way, 
have held communication with the outside 
world. 

The tradition of the sudden subsidence of 
''Atlantis " in the west, was hoary with age 
when related to Plato by the Egyptian 
priests. Whether the Azores are really the 
mountain peaks of that drowned Continent, 
which once bridged the distance between 
the east and west, — or, whether by natural 
process of evolution an isolated race by law 
of nature came to use the same arbitrary di- 
visions of time, symbols, ritual, — developing 
upon lines identical with the nations in the 
east, are the two extreme theories with 
which speculation is still busy. 

In North America, stretching from the 



30 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Great Lakes to tlie Gulf of Mexico, are evi- 
dences of a civilization shrouded in still 
deeper mystery; a race so remote in time 
that excepting vast earthworks, — those most 
indestructible forms of architecture, — its 
traces are almost eifaced. These parallelo- 
grams, squares, pyramids, rearing their 
heads some of them ninety feet high, and 
extending many of them over acres and 
some over even miles of territory, are silent 
and mysterious as the Sphinx. A huge ser- 
pent to-day winds through Ohio in graceful 
curves for 1000 feet, its open jaws about to 
swallow an egg-shaped figure 364 feet long. 
For what purpose millions of men toiled for 
centuries upon these strange structures baf- 
fles conjecture. But their construction 
shows a knowledge of principles which gives 
evidence of a i)eople highly developed in 
some respects, while beautiful designs in 
vases and utensils tell of advanced concep- 
tions in art. 

The North American Indian, who wan- 
dered careless and incurious over these vast 
graves of a prehistoric race, belonged to a 
time comparatively recent, and had not one 
instinct in common with his predecessors. 
The Mound-Builders, the Aztecs, and the 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 31 

" Children of the Sun," give evidence of a 
common origin. They were toilers, and have 
left the impress of a tremendous purpose 
and industry in the lands where they dwelt; 
whereas the Indian leaves no more trace of 
occupation in the country through Avhich he 
roams than do the elk and buffalo on the 
plains, or the deer in the forests. While 
the Mound-Builders must have been num- 
bered by millions, the North American Indi- 
ans who succeeded them were but a handful; 
not more than 200,000, or the contents of a 
city like Detroit, emptied into the vast soli- 
tudes east of the Mississippi. The West 
Indies and adjacent tropical lands, on the 
contrary, were when found densely pox)u- 
lated with the native race. 

Such was the Continent barring the way 
to India, and upon whose threshold the ra- 
pacious Spaniard was fiercely hunting for 
gold and i3earls. 

The treasure already flowing into Spain, 
was only a golden promise of what lay be- 
yond this obstructing land. Other nations 
were eager to share the fruits of a discovery 
they had refused to aid. 

England, never far behind in such enter- 
prise, was first in the field; Henry YII send- 



33 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

ing out promptly an expedition in charge of 
John Cabot^ a Venetian mariner. He wise- 
ly conjectured tliat on a round world, a 
northern course must be the shorter one. 
Sailing from Bristol for Cathay in 1497, he 
came unexpectedly upon the coast of New- 
foundland, and was the unconscious discov- 
erer of the Continent of America. (One year 
earlier than Columbus landed in South 
America — 1498. ) 

While the Cabots, father and son, were 
searching the Northern coast for straits 
which would carry them to the east through 
the west, Spain was not idle. 

Ponce de Leon in search of the fabled 
spring of youth, had come upon a flowery 
coast on Easter Sunday, — '^ Pascua Flori- 
da^^^ — and gave the picturesque name Flori- 
da to the peninsula (1512). 

Balboa had crossed the isthmus of Darien 
and dramatically claimed the then nameless 
ocean for Spain (1513). 

Magellan still searching for an open water- 
way through the land, found it — (1520) — but 
too far away to be of much use to commerce. 
He christened the Pacific Ocean — and then 
as he lay dead in the Phillipine Islands, 
slain by savages, — abundant honors were at- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 

tached to his name, for being the first to cir- 
cumnavigate the globe. 

That sumptuous Monarch Francis I asked 
*' what sort of compact have Spain and Eng- 
land with the Almighty, that they should 
divide the earth between them?" 

Yerazzani^ a Florentine mariner offered 
his services to France, and with a single ca- 
ravel, the *' Dolphin," crossed the ocean 
reaching the coast where Wilmington now 
stands. 

The little "Dolphin" bearing this first 
Italian to our shores sailed into New York 
Harbor 1524. He pronounced it "the good- 
liest place his eyes had ever rested on," — a 
sentiment echoed since by a million (more or 
less) of his countrymen. We hear he had 
also a favorable opinion of Newjport^ which 
has also been shared by many Europeans. 

Cartiei\ in 1534, explored the shores of 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the river 
of that name as far as the Island which 
he named Mont-real^ — Royal-Mount: — and 
planting the colors of Francis I, — he called 
the land "New France." 

Spain in the meanwhile was penetrating 
farther and farther into the west. Nothing 
in the annals of the world exceeds her 



34 HISTORY OF THE UN^ITED STATES. 

cruelties in Mexico and Peru ; the Monte- 
zumas in 1521 under Cortez^ and the Incas 
in 1532 under Pizarro, perishing in her 
grasp. 

Fernando de Soto who had been trained 
in cruelty under Cortez in Peru, received a 
commission from Charles Y to go in search 
of the '* Seven Cities of Cibola." He led a 
glittering host into the dense forests where 
now are the plantations of northern Missis- 
six)X3i, and when instead of great potentates 
and sumptuous cities, forlorn Indians came 
out of native wigwams, offering corn, they 
killed them in disa]3pointment and rage. 
At the point where Memphis stands the 
King of Rivers was first seen by European 
eyes. There too De Soto died, and his hopes 
and ambitions were buried in the turbid 
waters he had discovered. (1541.) 

One of his followers, Menendez returned, 
to found the town of St. Augustine, — (1565). 
At the same time that Admiral Coligny's 
colony of Huguenot refugees was living its 
brief life at Port Royal, upon what is now 
the South Carolina coast. 

Cabrillo^ another of Cortez' s comrades, fol- 
lowed the direction up the Pacific coast in- 
dicated by the Mexicans as a region of gold. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 35 

Tlieir feet unconsciously trod that El-Do- 
rado of three centuries later which would 
have satisfied tlieir wildest dream, naming 
it California^ after a Kingdom in a Spanish 
romance then pox)ular. 

So, — striving to get through or around the 
land, — experimenting like curious and ad- 
venturous ants, these pioneers of an invading 
host had pierced the Continent at countless 
points, still believing it was the Asiatic coast. 

Eurox)e was disheartened by the immensity 
of the barriers. Martin Frohislier^ in 1576, 
went in search of a northwest passage to 
India. He reported the finding of gold as 
he threaded his way through the icebergs 
and frozen islands of the Northern sea, and 
revived the waning interest. 

Sir Francis DraJce, who in 1579 had 
sailed far up the western coast of the north- 
ern continent, discovered a new and easier 
way of getting treasure from the west. Dur- 
ing the war between Spain and England 
(1588) he waylaid and captured ships laden 
with riches wrung from the Montezumas and 
the Incas, and found it a much more profit- 
able kind of gold-hunting than sifting the 
sands of frozen Arctic seas. 

It is a curious fact that the country which 



36 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

contributed most largely to the discovery of 
the New World, never owned a foot of its 
territory. Italy gave Columbus and Yespu- 
cius to Spain, the Cahots to England, and 
Verrazani to France, and neither territory, 
treasure nor renown were her reward; while 
even the privilege of bestowing a name upon 
the new Continent was by a strange freak 
of fortune accorded to Germany. 



CHAPTEH V. 

A CENTUEY after the Discovery, the Con- 
tinent of North America was claimed by 
three nations. 

The SpanisJi Claim, under the names of 
Florida and New Mexico^ extended from 
ocean to ocean, and then north indefinitely. 

The French Claim, under the names of 
Acadia and New France, extended as far 
south as Philadelphia and thence indefi- 
nitely southwest and west. 

The Fnglish Claim, between the 34th and 
45th parallels of latitude, had also an indefi- 
nite extension, but only toward the setting 
sun; the western portion being known as 
New Albion, and the eastern Yirgiiiia. 

So long as this basket work of interlacing 
claims existed only upon paper, it made little 
difference. But the time was coming when 
the great solitary spaces would be occupied, 
and many struggles would be required to 
adjust conflicting lines. 

Sir Walter Raleigli^ in 1584, obtained from 



38 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Queen Elizabeth a patent for a large terri- 
tory, with a view to permanent settlement, 
instead of random exiDeditions in search of 
treasure. The idea of being proprietor of a 
princely domain, with numerous tenantry 
yielding not alone revenue, but allegiance, 
appealed to the picturesque imagination of 
the courtly adventurer, by whom the new 
land was christened Virginia in honor of 
the Virgin Queen. 

The two colonies, which he successively 
planted on the Island of Roanoke had a 
brief existence of suffering, starvation and 
tragedy. In five years there was an En- 
glish graveyard, but not an English town 
upon the American continent. 

Raleigh had sjDent $200,000 of his private 
fortune in an experiment of which can be 
recorded two results. The unfortunate set- 
tlers had discovered a plant with tuberous 
root (the potato j which " when boiled had a 
goodly taste;" and the tahaco of the na- 
tive Indians in the West Indies, became 
known to Europeans ; a plant which was 
destined to serve ' ' Virginia " in an ex- 
traordinary manner in her early existence. 

Unable himself to realize his dream, Ral- 
eigh stimulated others to attempt it. Oos- 



HISTORY OF THE Ul!^ITED STATES. 39 

nold in 1602 landed at Cape Cod, and found 
in Buzzard's Bay, the ideal home of the next 
settlement, while others returned from va- 
rious other points on the coast with various 
extravagant accounts of their advantages. 

So the interest was kept alive and at last 
attracted the attention of the King. The 
seed sown by Raleigh was to ripen and bear 
fruit ; — but not for him. He, the brilliant, 
sagacious statesman, the accomplished schol- 
ar and writer, his mind filled with com- 
prehensive plans for his age, was upon a 
mere pretext to be thrown into prison 
by a vain, pedantic, narrow-minded king; 
(James I) there to languish for sixteen years 
before the long-susx)ended axe should fall. 

In 1618, — while men were still living who 
had helped to destroy the Sj)anish Armada, 
(1588) — the head of the most-variously 
gifted man in England was given as an offer- 
ing to the friendship of Spain! 

The lirst attempt at colonization had been 
under the auspices of an absentee Proprie- 
tor. Now a larger experiment was to be 
tried under the protection of the crown. 

In the year 1607, Colonial life in America 
commenced. 



40 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In 1606, James I issued charters to two 
trading Companies, called respectively the 
London Comj)any, and The Plymouth Com- 
pany ; the former privileged to occupy 
Southern Virginia, and the latter Northern 
Virginia; or in other words, all the coast 
line between Labrador and the 34th parallel 
of latitude, (a little north of Charleston) 
excepting, — a small neutral strip to be re- 
served between the two Comx)anies ; neither 
of which was to approach within 100 miles 
of the other. 

This Charter was worthy of the King who 
granted it. No less generous instrument, 
nor one less calculated to invite self-respect- 
ing men could have been devised for an en- 
terprise which required every virtue. 

For the privilege of occupying a wilder- 
ness, subduing its forests, and meeting the 
j)erils and hardships of pioneer life among 
savages, Englishmen were to abandon every 
political right they had enjoyed at home, to 
be subject to the arbitrary control of a com- 
mercial body in London, which was in turn 
to be controlled by the King. They were to 
have no voice or influence in the manage- 
ment of their own affairs. The King was to 
receive one-fifth of all the gold and silver 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 41 

obtained, and for five years every man was 
to labor for a common fund. 

Such was the first Government framed 
for the land which was to be the abode of 
liberty. 

Men must have been wretched indeed to 
accept such conditions. So it is not sur- 
prising that the three little ships which 
sailed into Chesapeake Bay in 1607, brought, 
with few exceptions, men of desperate for- 
tunes hunted out of England by miseries so 
great, they were glad to " fiy to ills, they 
knew not of." It did not help matters that 
they were "gentlemen;" as some one says, 
"dissolute gallants, packed off to escape 
worse destinies at home, and more fitted to 
corrupt, than to found, a commonwealth." 

As they sailed up the river and as un- 
willing hands cleared the ground for their 
first settlement (both named after King 
James), it was gold, gold, always gold of 
which they were thinking — believing in 
every shining bit of yellow earth, they had 
found the beginning of boundless riches. 

The history of such an expedition might 
have been written in advance, but for the 
saving presence of one man, whose name has 
not been sufficiently honored for stemming 



42 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tlie tide of discord, folly, discouragement 
and even despair, and being in fact the first 
to plant tlie Anglo-Saxon race on this Con- 
tinent. 

John Smith is known to many peox)le as a 
man who owes his chief distinction to having 
his life romantically saved by an Indian 
Princess. He had come nnscathed from a 
hundred perils in Europe and in the Orient; 
but he was more than a hero of romantic ad- 
venture. By force of a tremendous ability 
he came quickly to the front, and by rare 
sagacity and firmness kept the unruly herd 
from destruction during those first years of 
unspeakable suffering in Jamestown. He 
discerned that the soil was the true gold- 
mine; and labor the indisi^ensable condition 
for existence, and had the firmness to re- 
quire and to compel gentlemen to work. 

Amid his distracting duties this coura- 
geous, versatile, resourceful man found time 
to make a voyage of exploration ; sailing 
3,000 miles in his little pinnace ''Dis- 
covery. ' ' He skirted the coast of Chesaj)eake 
Bay, and thence up the Potomac, passing 
the future home of Washington and the 
city bearing his name, as far as the falls of 
Georgetown. He did more than anyone 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

else to extend the bounds of geographical 
knowledge in this great unexplored tract ; 
the accuracy of which is attested by his 
niai)s still extant. 

If anyone deserves to be called the ' ' Father 
of Virginia " it is this man, who when he 
returned to England fatally injured by an 
exj)losion of gunpowder, received no slight- 
est recognition from the Commercial Com- 
pany he had served. The London Company 
caring for nothing but quick and rich re- 
turns, profoundly irritated and disappoint- 
ed, saw nothing to commend. 

Some benefit came from this disappoint- 
ment. Many of the narrow-minded pro- 
jectors of the enterj)rise dropped out, and 
their i3laces were gradually filled with others 
who believed in a wiser and more liberal 
policy. There was from time to time an ex- 
tension of privileges, and when the settler no 
longer toiled for a common fund, and every 
man might be proprietor of a bit of land 
for his own use, an incentive for individual 
effort was created. 

That clause in the Charter giving to the 
Crown one-fifth of tlie gold and silver, had 
the one advantage of luring men from the 
ruinous madness of gold- hunting toward 



44 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

agriculture, wliicli was not subject to sucli 
tribute. 

The discovery of the value and facility of 
tobacco-culture (1614) was an epoch in the 
life of the wretched colonists. It brought 
the first throb of prosperity. When they 
found that this plant so easily cultivated 
brought sure and swift returns in things for 
which they had been suffering, that it could 
be used to pay debts and purchase comfort, 
planting took the place of thriftless gold- 
hunting. 

There was nothing which tobacco would 
not buy. Food, clothing, farming imple- 
ments, and even wives, were exchanged for 
the ''weed," which became the recognized 
currency of that region for 150 years. 

Sending a cargo of English maidens as 
wives for the settlers also brought enormous 
benefit. The lonely X3lanters gladly jpaid the 
100 or 150 ]30unds of tobacco which was the 
price of purchase ; or — to state it in terms 
less barbarous, — the sum required to pay 
the cost of passage. 

Unhappily the year 1619 brought another 
and less beneficent gift to our shores. A 
cargo of Africans just from their native 
coast were purchased, and found so efficient 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 45 

in tobacco-planting, that more were sent for, 
and the curse of negro-slavery was firmly 
rooted in American soil. 

With the formation of domestic ties, and 
other improved conditions, a stream com- 
posed of a better class had steadily set in 
from England. Instead of a little starving 
band in Jamestown, there were now planta- 
tions, and houses, and settlements ; still 
leading a struggling existence, none leaping 
to wealth by sudden bound, but with roots 
growing deeper and deeper in that soil, 
which is the basis of true prosperity. 

The colonists were controlled now by Gov- 
ernors apx)ointed by the London Council, 
and were more or less miserable, according 
to the qualities of the men selected. There 
was cruelty, injustice, OT)pression, hardship, 
— but upon the whole a steady movement 
toward enlarged privileges until 1621, — 
when Governor Yeardley invited two repre- 
sentatives from each of the eleven boroughs, 
called burgesses^ to meet with him and the 
Council. With this came into existence, — 
tJie first i^epresentative body in America. 

On account of real and fancied wrongs in 
1622, the Indians made a preconcerted at- 
tack ui)on the scattered plantations, killing 



46 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

on the same day 347 men, women and chil- 
dren. In the long warfare which followed 
this tragedy, there was another massacre of 
500 (1644), and by depredations and deser- 
tions, the Colony was reduced almost one- 
half. 

Such persistent calamities wore out the 
patience of the London Company, which 
was dissolved, and Virginia became a Royal 
Province. As if in fear of its becoming too 
prosperous, England enforced the "Navi- 
gation Act," which compelled her and the 
other colonies then existing, to send all their 
exports to England, and also to procure 
from that country their imports; a policy 
which had an important subsequent history. 

Governor BerJieley at the same time was 
devoting himself to devising tyrannical re- 
strictions, for the submissive colonists, and 
when he arbitrarily refused to give adequate 
protection from the Indians at a time of 
great peril, a feeling of i3rofound indigna- 
tion for the first time found expression. An 
outburst of fury was led by a young law- 
yer, Nathaniel Bacon. It resulted in the 
burning of Jamestown and driving away of 
Berkeley, 1676 — just one hundred years 
before another and greater rebellion. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 47 

When Governor Berkeley later wreaked 
his vengeance upon these men, Charles II 
said, ''That old fool has taken more lives in 
that naked country, than I for the murder 
of my father." 



CHAPTER YI. 

DiTRiis'G tlie first fourteen years of bitter 
experiences in Southern Virginia there had 
been little desire to make settlements under 
the Charter of the Plymouth Company^ in 
the north. The French in Acadia had crept 
farther into the interior. Champlain in 
1608, had established a trading-post at Que- 
hec, and the year following, had given his 
name to the beautiful lake he explored. 

In the same year (1609) Henry Hudson an 
English navigator, bearing a commission 
from the Dutch East India Company '''to 
find an easier route to Asia,^^ upon his little 
ship "Half -Moon" sailed into New York 
Harbor, past Manhattan Island, into the 
river now bearing his name. As he gazed 
wonderingiy at the Palisa^des, and as he 
threaded his way through the Highlands and 
under the shadow of the Catskills he hoped 
he had found the long-sought waterway to 
India. Then in disappointment at the nar- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 49 

rowing stream, he was off and away again 
to the icebergs and frozen north, in Fro- 
bisher's footsteps, leaving his name upon 
the great ice- bound bay through which he 
sailed. 

Hudson's exploration of the beautiful 
^'Manhattan" river and of the adjacent 
coasts, was seized as a pretext for Coloniza- 
tion by Holland, which, defying the priority 
of Cabot's discovery (115 years earlier) gave 
to a territory extending from Delaware Bay, 
to Cape Cod, the name " New Netherlands. '''' 
Whether this was as England thought a 
lawless intrusion, or whether as Holland con- 
tended England had forfeited her claim to 
the Continent, by not having exercised it for 
more than a hundred years, may still be an 
unsettled question. At all events this ''in- 
trusion," brought to our shores an element, 
without which our civilization would be im- 
poverished indeed. No part of Europe could 
have contributed such stability, such equi- 
librium, and such simple instincts^ for free- 
dom and justice as streamed from the 
Netherlands during those fifty-five years of 
Dutch occupation. A land which was to be 
so plentifully sprinkled with Celtic sand, 
had need of just such sub-stratum of tena- 



50 HISTORY OF THE UN^ITED STATES. 

cious clay from Holland at its foundation! — 
In 1613, a thriving trading-post was estab- 
lished on Manhattan Island which the Dutch 
called New Amsterdam^ and another on the 
site of Albany was named Orange, 



James, that ' ' Divinely Ai3pointed ' ' King 
who "could do no wrong" had been en- 
gaged in ' ' harrying out of the land ' ' the stub- 
born ministers who refused to wear surplices, 
and to bow to the cross, and Holland had be- 
come an asylum for persecuted Nonconform- 
ists. To many of these it seemed that a home 
of their own in that wilderness across the 
ocean, would be a blessed refuge. 

The old Plymouth Company in England, 
was superseded by a new one, receiving 
from King James a New Charter (1620) in 
which for the first time, the territory hang 
between the 40th and 48th degrees of lati- 
tude w^as called ^^ Neio England.''^ Hence- 
forth the name Virginia disappears from 
the region indicated. After the reorganiza- 
tion of the old company, it bestowed its 
first grant, upon a band of men calling 
themselves the Neio Plymouth Company. 
One hundred and twenty souls embarked on 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 51 

tlie ship "Mayflower" and arrived the 21st of 
December 1620, at a point on the American 
coast which they named Plymouth. 

Hitherto no European had ever come to 
the New World for any purj)ose but gain. 
It was in search of treasure, that the Span- 
iards carried blight and desolation into 
the South and West. It was for gold — or 
its equivalent — that the French, the Dutch 
and the Anglo-Saxons in Southern Virginia 
were enduring hardship. The Pilgrims came 
for something more precious than gold or 
pearls. They expected toil and suffering, 
and sacrifices. It was the price they were 
willing to pay, for what was beyond price. 
Through the aAvful experiences of that first 
winter on a bleak coast, struggling with 
cold, mortal disease and death, they never 
complained. With grim fortitude they dug 
graves in the frozen earth for one-half their 
number. 

It seems impossible that these men be- 
longed to the same race as the first Anglo- 
Saxon band at Jamestown, whom they re- 
sembled as little, — as they did the men who 
sailed on the three caravels from Palos. 

They represented all the manhood which 
had wrung freedom from British tyranny 



52 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

througli centuries of resistance. They were 
tlie fruit of every struggle from King John to 
Oliver Cromwell. This fruit, — acrid, bitter, 
unlovely to tlie taste sometimes, had at its 
core — Righteousness, the most x^recious 
seed ever planted in American soil. 

The Pilgrims had a charter, not from the 
Crown, but from the parent company in 
England, permitting them to choose their 
own Governor. He was elected by universal 
suffrage, (which for a time meant less than 
100 votes ! ) and for eighteen years the whole 
body of male poiDulation constituted the 
Legislature, until increase, and diffusion 
over larger territory, led to a representative 
system. 

The augmenting bitterness against the 
Puritans in England and the peaceful ex- 
periences of the Pilgrims in America, turned 
the hearts of many more to that refuge. In 
1629 another grant was bestowed upon 
a trading Corporation, calling itself the 
"Massachusetts Bay Company. ^^ Many 
valuable men, with their families flocked to 
Salem, the ''City of Peace," under the 
leadership of John Endicott. 

It is often the case that undue severity to 
the first-born is followed by extreme indul- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 53 

gence to the next. Certainly the Puritan 
child was no favorite with the Mother Coun- 
try; but she was treated with an indulgence 
strongly contrasting with the restrictions 
and severity which had been shown to her 
older sister in South Virginia. The reason 
is not far to seek. James had hated the 
Puritans, and would gladly have banished 
the whole of them. Charles, too much of a 
gentleman to hate anyone, thoroughly dis- 
liked them, and would have rejoiced to rid 
his Kingdom entirely of its most trouble- 
some element. Then too, England owned a 
vast unimproved country. What better 
use could be made of these turbulent psalm- 
singing Puritans, than to have them hew 
down the forests and open up the resources 
of her American j^ossessions, upon which 
the French were encroaching, and the Dutch 
trespassing ? 

But exi^erience in South Virginia had 
shown that Colonies will not thrive under 
tyranny. So when Governor Winthroi) in 
1630 joined the band at Salem with 1,000 
recruits, he also brought a charter more in- 
dulgent Qven, than the one possessed by the 
Pilgrims. They, might elect their own Gov- 
ernors and officers, a General Assembly of 



54 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

their own choosing had supreme authority, 
and the meeting of the Council was trans- 
ferred from London to Salem. 

Although in "goode hearte," Winthrop 
found the Colony in famishing condition, 
uncomplainingly subsisting upon shell-fish 
and acorns. A day was ai3pointed for fast- 
ing and x)rayer; which prayer was heard in 
advance. The arrival of a ship from Eng- 
land loaded with ample provisions, convert- 
ed the fast into a feast, which Americans 
have commemorated ever since in bleak No- 
vember. The first Thanksgiving dinner was 
in 1631. 

It is not strange that with such exjDulsive 
agencies at work in England, and such at- 
tractive ones in America, the solitudes were 
filling up. Something like civilization be- 
gan to appear. Hearth-fires were burning 
in Chaiiestown, (1629,) Boston, (1630,) Cam- 
bridgeport, Koxbury, and settlements form- 
ing at more distant points, and an old 
man, John Harvard^ was revolving in his 
mind the plan of leaving by his will £400, 
for " the support of a schoale or Colledge^''^ 
(1637). In ten years, 20,000 people had 
joined the Colonists. 

If Mighteousness^ be indispensable in the 



HISTORY OF THE UN'ITED STATES. 55 

foundation of a state, other qualities are 
also needed in its administration and devel- 
opment. The Puritans did not understand 
that there are other tyrannies besides those 
of Kings and Parliaments ; and that the 
most odious of all, is tyranny in matters of 
religious belief. It was their misfortune to 
be a community without conflict from diver- 
sity of opinion. In 1634, Roger Williams^ 
for maintaining that "No one should be 
compelled to support a form of worshijD con- 
trary to his will or belief," was tried by the 
General Court, and a sentence of exile pro- 
nounced ux)on him. 

In order to escape being transported to 
England, this first ajDostle of intellectual 
freedom, fled into the wilderness and en- 
dured a winter of cruel exposure, being 
sheltered at last by the Narragansett Indi- 
ans. They gave to him a large tract of terri- 
tory, which he gratefully called Providence. 
This he resolved to make a refuge for all 
who were persecuted for oj)inion' s sake, and 
Rhode Island, the smallest of the thirteen 
States, was built upon a foundation deeper 
and wider — with one exception — than any of 
them. Mrs. Hutchinson, leader of a strange 
fanatical sect, was the flrst to seek this ref- 



56 HISTORY or THE UNITED STATES. 

uge. She also suffered banishment, and 
with a band of followers joined Williams, 
while many others suffering like j^ersecu- 
tions started forlorn settlements in New 
Hampshire or sought refuge in neighboring 
Colonies. 

The flogging and even executing of Qua- 
kers twenty years later, and the torturing, 
hanging and burning of seventy-five people 
accused of witchcraft between 1645 and 1690, 
concludes the sorriest chapter in the history 
of New England. All the water in Charles 
River could not wash those bloodstains from 
Boston Common, and Salem the "City of 
Peace," will be forever associated with one 
of the most revolting ex)isodes in history. 

Fleeing from persecution themselves, they 
were the most relentless of persecutors. The 
Keformation of which these men and deeds 
were the intense and bitter fruit, — was des- 
tined to liberate, not to enchain men's con- 
sciences. 

A democratic form of government is the 
safest, not because the individual units are 
to be trusted; but precisely because they are 
not. Twelve men are wiser than one, and 
perhaps the verdict of one hundred would 
be more just than that of twelve. It is in the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 57 

general average of a large number of contrast- 
ing minds and characters that we escape 
harm from unbalanced individual traits. In 
New England there were no contrasting 
views. They were all of one mind and one 
heart. 

The Puritans were abnormally developed 
on the side of righteousness. They needed 
a thousand such men as Williams, and were 
to have them too. New England, founded in 
religious tyranny, was by the saving law of 
reaction to become the nursery of intellec- 
tual freedom in America. 

A large tract obtained by Fernando Gor- 
ges and John Mason, 1623, which they di- 
vided (1629) and named res]3ectively, Maine 
and New Hami)shire (the latter containing 
the future State of Vermont,) had few set- 
tlers. Forlorn and harassed by the Indians, 
these struggling Colonies crept under the 
protection of the vigorous Massachusetts 
Bay Colony, and virtually belonged to it. 

The more inviting region of the Connecti- 
cut Valley began to be colonized under a 
grant obtained by the Lords Say and Brooke, 
— 1631. — Regardless of the pretended Dutch 
claim it was now rapidly settling, and was 
the first to adopt a written Constitution. 



58 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

John Wintlirop, son of the first Governor 
of Massachusetts, was first Gfovernor of Con- 
necticut. 

This was the destination of Oliver Crom- 
well, Pym, and John Hampden, when King 
Charles recalled the ship bearing them away, 
and thereby sealed his own fate. It is inter- 
esting to think upon what might have been 
the eif ect of such a dominating personality as 
Cromwell's. Certainly his influence would 
not have been confined within the nascent 
Colony of Connecticut, and there might 
have been a different history, and perhaps 
even another map, of New England. 

Faint outlines of the future States were 
becoming visible. In 1643 for mutual pro- 
tection and benefit, Massachusetts, Ply- 
mouth and the two Connecticut Colonies, 
(New Haven and Say brook) formed a union 
called The United Colonies of New Eng- 
land^ foreshadowing a greater Confederation 
which was to come. Rhode Island would 
have liked to join the Confederacy, but was 
too much of a culprit to be admitted, and 
those stern Puritans no doubt felt a mild 
pleasure in making her feel the weight of 
her transgression. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Meanwhile for more than fifty years 
there had been steadily setting in from Hol- 
land a stream of Dutch virtue and thrift, 
which extended south into Jersey, and uj) 
the Hudson river toward Albany. 

The Dutch Republic offered free passage to 
mechanics, and to men of wealth, large 
tracts of land if they would at their own 
expense bring 50 or more men to settle them, 
calling these proprietors "Patroons," or 
patrons of the Manor. Governors appointed 
at Holland resided at New Amsterdam, and 
had their peace-loving souls sorely tried by 
Swedes on the Delaware, English on the 
Connecticut, and Indians everywhere. 

But it was a thriving and happy little 
community, which occupied the Southern ex- 
tremity of Manhattan Island, composed at 
that time of about 1,000 souls; or a popula- 
tion as large as one of the great office build- 
ings now standing on the same site. 



60 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

As Governor Peter Stuyvesant sat in his 
doorway, looking out upon the bay, the 
little island where the Statue of Liberty was 
to stand and upon the grey outline of Staten 
Island heights beyond, he complacently 
smoked his pipe and thrilled the souls of 
the Knickerbockers with the oft-told tale of 
]iis bloodless victory over the Swedes; who 
had in fact quite as sound a title to the 
Delaware shores as had the Dutch. 

But in 1664 Charles II gave to his brother 
James, Duke of York, the territory claimed 
by the Dutch. When the squadron of four 
English ships entered New York Harbor, 
the valiant Stuyvesant, perliai)s with some 
doubts as to the validity of the Dutch claim, 
discreetly surrendered without resistance. 
New Amsterdam, (already containing a 
goodly number of Englishmen from Hol- 
land, ) became New York, and Fort Orange 
was changed to Albany. 

James, content with the portion named in 
his honor, gave what is known as New Jer- 
sey, with its Swedish Colony, X3lanted by 
Gustavus Adolphus, to his friends. Lord 
John Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, and 
later ceded the jDortion called Delaware, to 
William Penn, to be joined to Pennsylvania. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Gl 

Sir Pliilii^ Carteret, brother of Sir George, 
the Proprietor, was the first Royal Governor 
of New Jersey. He married the daughter 
of a wealthy patentee on Long Island. This 
led to a large immigration of Puritan set- 
tlers from her home and the founding of a 
town, which in honor of Lady Elizabeth 
Carteret was named Elizdbethtoion^ and was 
the first settlement in New Jersey. 

For the benefit of those ladies desiring a 
share in public aifairs it should be men- 
tioned, that this Colonial Dame, in the ab- 
sence of her husband in England, Avas au- 
thorized to sign pajoers for him. And the 
early records of New Jersey now show Acts 
bearing the signature of Elizabeth Carteret. 

^'Virginia" the name which once stood 
for all the English ^possessions from Labra- 
dor to Florida was gradually shrinking into 
more modest dimensions. New England had 
first been hewn out of the Mother Colony; 
then the New Netherlands reduced it still 
more. In 1634 Charles I gave to Lord Bal- 
timore the territory extending from the 
mouth of the Delaware, to the mouth of the 
Potomac and an irregular tract which the 
proprietor called Maryland, still farther en- 
croached upon the diminishing State, which 



62 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

made ineffectual resistance in what is known 
as the "Clayborne Rebellion." 

Every political revolution in the Mother 
Country, left corresponding record on the 
shores of America. As the persecution of 
Puritans had colonized New England, now 
the persecution of the Catholics under Crom- 
wellian rule stimulated Lord Baltimore to 
find asylum for them in Maryland. But no 
intolerance stains the memory of this en- 
lightened colonizer, who was catholic in the 
broadest sense. Going beyond Roger Will- 
iams in liberality, he did not restrict his 
invitation to Christians^ but invited all of 
whatever belief, or unbelief, to come to this, 
the first real home of intellectual freedom 
in Europe or America. 

His liberality was ungratefully repaid. 
Fleeing protestants accepted the invitation 
in such numbers that they were finally able 
to exclude the catholics from power, and 
even to drive Lord Baltimore out of his own 
colony; the contest continuing with varying 
results, until the Revolution. 

There was another dismemberment of Vir- 
ginia in 1663 — when that lavish King, Char- 
les II, probably having dined well, gave 
to eight of his friends, a tract extend- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 

ing from the Savannah River to the Poto- 
mac. As this like the other colonies had an 
indefinite extension west, it will be seen that 
the claim covered not far from a million 
square miles. It is not often that so con- 
siderable a slice of our j)lanet lies within 
the gift of one man ! 

The grateful Lords named their colony 
Carolina in honor of Charles; then in con- 
sultation with John Locke the philosopher, 
proceeded to frame what they called a 
' ' Grand Model ' ' for its Government. 

Frederick of Prussia once said "if he 
had a Province to punish, he would give 
it to philosophers to govern." This "Grand 
Model" was a sort of beneficent feudalism 
in which a picturesque and prosperous ten- 
antry paid willing tribute to a picturesque 
and ideal titled class. 

In a land of log-cabins instead of baronial 
castles, where settlers could have more land 
than they needed without rent these fanci- 
ful devices came quickly to grief. 

Governments are created, not on paper, 
but on the soil out of which they grow. The 
l^lanting of virtues, of intelligence and re- 
finements by refugee Huguenots, and the 
X)lanting of rice, in her low-lying coast-lands. 



64 HISTORY OF THE UmTED STATES. 

by imported Africans, were tlie chief agen- 
cies in developing South Carolina — or Car- 
teret Colony as it was called — while North 
Carolina, or Albemarle Colony, was partially 
settled by Virginians at the time it was 
carved from the parent State. Charleston 
was founded in 1680. The mulberry, and the 
olive, the quaint old gardens with trimmed 
shrubbery, and the French names on the 
narrow streets, — all these tell to-day, of the 
gentle and cultured people who were driven 
out of France by Louis the Fourteenth. 



While Puritans and Catholics were alter- 
nately persecuted and persecutors, the Qua- 
kers were in all i)laces, and at all times, 
hunted out of every land. 

William Penn, a young man of wealth 
and aristocratic connections in England, to 
the dismay of his family resolved to cast his 
lot in with the unpopular sect. 

His father had a claim against the Crown, 
— Charles II, who never found it convenient 
to pay such debts in money, was glad to set- 
tle this one by giving a tract of land lying 
west of the Delaware River to William who 
desired it as refuge for the Quakers. 



HISTORY OF THE U:&nTED STATES. 65 

Penn's perfect justice in dealing witli the 
Indians insured X3eace ; and his generous 
tolerant spirit and wise administration 
brought si^eedy prosx^erity to the Colony ; 
which he called Sylvania^ and which his 
Royal patron insisted should be Fennsjl- 
vania. 

In 1683, in the midst of a dense forest the 
deer were startled by the sound of the wood- 
man' s axe ; and the foundations of a city 
laid, which its founder named Philadel- 
pTiia, (brotherly love). No settlement in 
America had such rai3id growth. In one 
year it had 100 homes, and in three years 
had left New Amsterdam far behind. 



The last born of the original colonies came 
into existence in 1732. A year still more 
signally honored by the birth of George 
Washington. 

The laws of England bore heavily upon 
debtors, and English x^risons were filled 
with men wrecked in fortune and in hope. 
James Oglethorpe conceived the idea of 
making a refuge for this unliapx3y class, 
and obtained from Gfeorge II a tract of land 
*'in trust for the x^oor," which he called 



66 HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Georgia. This territory was carved out of 
South Carolina, that Colony willingly giv- 
ing consent for the sake of the protection of 
an intermediate colony between her and the 
Spanish in Florida, by whom she was con- 
stantly harassed. 

Oglethorx)e' s refuge for distressed human- 
ity was quickly colonized, and his plans put 
into operation. Slavery, now existing in all 
the other colonies, was to be excluded ; and 
also rum, and wealth, — and poverty. Ex- 
cluding wealth was not difficult ; but in a 
community where unnatural restrictions 
were placed upon industry, and where a 
common ownershii) of land took away in- 
centive for industry, poverty was less easily 
abolished. The generous and kindly ex- 
periment languished for twenty years. Silk- 
culture which was to be the industry of this 
Utopia was unprofitable, and in 1752 the 
dream of legislating human misery out of 
existence, was abandoned. Georgia was 
surrendered to the King, and with restric- 
tions removed entered upon a new and com- 
mon-place career, taking her chances in the 
usual struggle with the infirmities of human- 
ity. The generous Oglethorpe returned to 
England; but not before he had led his 



HISTORY OF THE UHITED STATES. 67 

Colonists in a war with liis Spanish neigh- 
bors, thus realizing South Carolina's hope 
of finding a bulwark in Georgia. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

While the Engiisli Colonies were tlius de- 
veloping, French dominion in America was 
extending ; Jesuit Missions, trading-posts, 
and forts — always in combination — creeping 
along the shores of Lake Ontario, and to- 
ward the south and west ; another similar 
movement starting from the Gulf of Mexico 
to meet it, until between Montreal and New 
Orleans there was a chain of forts, more 
than sixty in number. 

New Orleans had been founded in the year 
1718, under the direction of the famous Mis- 
sissipi3i Com^Dany organized by John Law, 
and the French were firmly established 
about the mouth of the Great River. 

It was to her Jesuit priests, those marvel- 
lous pioneers in discovery, that France was 
most indebted in America. Marquette ex- 
plored the Mississippi from Frairie-du- 
Chien to the Arkansas River, (1673,) and La 
§alle, from thence, to its mouth in 1082, 



HISTOKY OF THE UKITED STATES. G9 

claiming the vast region drained by it for 
the Grand Monarch, and in honor of him, 
calling it Louisiana. 

It was not the policy of France to occui)y 
this great expanse of territory. It was not 
her aim to found a nation, but to make a 
distant possession commercially valuable, 
and to bring new streams of revenue into 
her j)erennially drained Treasury. 

By ingratiating themselves with the Indi- 
ans, winning their confidence, and even con- 
verting some to the religion of the Cross, 
priests and traders alike insinuated them- 
selves by degrees into the wilderness, estab- 
lishing an influence which strengthened the 
flimsy forts at long intervals, and secured 
savage allies instead of enemies. 

The English colonies, which as we have 
seen had been created one after another by 
internal conditions in the Mother Country, 
were equally sensitive now to disturbance 
in her foreign relations. A war between 
England and Spain, or France, had its im- 
mediate response in a conflict with Spanish 
Florida on the south, or the French Prov- 
inces on the north; so in 1689, when James 
II threw himself into the arms of Louis XIY, 



70 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and William and Mary ascended his dis- 
lionored throne and war was declared be- 
tween France and England, it produced for 
eight years a corresponding conflict, between 
the English and French in Canada. 

One midwinter night in 1690, there oc- 
curred one of those horrid tragedies which 
stain the images of history. The people in 
Schenectady were peacefully sleeping be- 
hind their palisades, defended as they be- 
lieved by miles of impenetrable snowdrifts, 
when they were surprised by the French 
and their savage allies. In less than a half 
hour from the moment they were awakened 
by that hideous war-whoop, sixty men, wo- 
men, and children were tomahawked, while 
a remnant was fleeing, almost without cloth- 
ing over the ice and snow to Albany, (17 
miles distant,) and others less fortunate 
were being dragged into captivity. 

New England had been made familiar 
with Indian barbarities by long experience 
and by King Phillip's war in 1675. She knew 
what it was to fight ambuscaded savages 
who never came into the open field. In sub- 
duing them, she had at last simply hunted 
them like wild animals, — the only tactics 
possible in such a warfare. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 71 

Tlioronglily aroused by the atrocity at 
Schenectady, all the northern colonies met 
in council at New York, and had their first 
training in united action. Precious blood 
was spilled in ineffectual attacks upon Que- 
bec, and other strongholds, until the ' ' Peace 
of Ryswick" (1697) closed the war, leaving 
bitterness, — but no territorial changes. 

This known as '"'King William's War," 
was quickly followed (1702) by another 
equally fruitless — "Queen Anne's War" — 
which for eleven years desolated miles of 
frontier, and countless hearts and homes. 
As this was a war against both France and 
Spain, South Carolina was at the same time 
struggling with Florida, the Spanish colony 
on her border. The "Treaty of Utrecht" 
(1713) brought peace, and the cession of 
Acadia to England, — that name being 
changed to Nova Scotia. 

King George's war (1744-1748) was the last 
of these rebounds from European collisions. 
After four years the Fortress of Louishurg 
on Breton Island, — the only fruit of the con- 
test, — was by the terms of peace restored to 
France. Within sixty years there had been 
twenty-three years of war. Tliousands of 
heroic men slept in their graves, a young 



72 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

civilization had been drained and impeded, 
— and the boundaries remained unchanged. 

The Navigation Act so odious to Virginia 
in 1660, was even more intolerable in Massa- 
chusetts, which unmolested from the first by 
Royal interference, and with control of her 
own Council, had enjoyed almost the free- 
dom of a young Eepublic. When it became 
evident that a measure so detestable was 
really to be enforced, indignation rose high, 
and there was rebellion in the air. 

In 1684, in open defiance of the act, trade 
with the West Indies was carried on by Mas- 
sachusetts. The punishment was swift and 
severe. Her Charter was annulled, 1684. 
She was declared a Royal Province, and for 
three years Sir Edmund Andros, Royal Gov- 
ernor, carried things with a high hand, and 
played the insolent tyrant, in New York, 
the Jerseys, and all the New England States. 

The dethroning of his Master James II in 
1689, rid the northern colonies of this detes- 
ted presence, and under Sir William Phipi^s 
the old liberties of Massachusetts to some 
extent returned, and her Cliarter, that most 
precious possession was restored. 

One of Connecticut's most treasured tra- 



HISTORY OF THE UN"ITED STATES. 73 

ditions is that of the spiriting away of her 
Charter when Governor Andros ' ' glittering 
with scarlet and lace," entered the Assem- 
bly and demanded it. The lights were sud- 
denly extingnished, and when relighted, the 
paper had disappeared, — and for three years 
it reposed in the hollow of a great tree known 
ever after as the '' Charter Oak." 

Although Massachusetts had her Charter, 
the irritating presence of Royal G-overnors, 
and a series of aggressions which disclosed 
a deliberate policy in the Mother Country, 
was engendering a bitterness deep and wide. 

Duties were imposed ui^on things carried 
from one colony to another; and not alone 
was their commerce to be restricted, but their 
industry actually to be stifled. 

The colonies must not make anything 
which would compete with English manu- 
factures, and in order to enforce this, no one 
was allowed to em^oloy more than two ap- 
j)rentices. As William Pitt indignantly de- 
clared later, ' ' she had not the right to manu- 
facture so much as a nail for a horse-shoe." 

Massachusetts was created in revolt. Her 
very birth was a struggle out of English tyr- 
anny. There was resistance and rebellion 
in her blood. Virginia on the other hand, 



74 HISTORY OF THE UITITED STATES. 

with small reason for gratitude to England, 
having received little good and much evil at 
her hand, was still Royalist to the core 
She had denounced the murder of King 
Charles, and exulted over the Restoration 
of his son. When Massachusetts was chosen 
as a refuge by the Regicides, she had shel- 
tered the adherents of Charles. Yet even 
she viewed with dismay, these assaults upon 
the prosperity of the colonies. 

The history of many years was a story 
simply of encroachments upon one side and 
revolt upon the other. Royal Governors, 
enforcing tyrannical measures, in perj^etual 
wrangle with Assemblies, standing for the 
rights and liberties of the Colonists. 

So, while the wars on their borders were a 
training in endurance and heroism, and in 
united action, the suffering of common 
wrongs was establishing a bond of sympa- 
thy between people of widely differing 
creeds and character, and was a training 
school for patriotism; a word of small sig- 
nificance then, — but destined to express 
something strong enough to create a Nation, 
and to be the very breath of that nation's life 
in the future — by which it exists even now, 
from day to day. 



CHAPTER IX. 

By all the canons of superstition, Amer- 
ica was doomed to failure. Not alone was the 
voyage for its discovery begun and ended on 
Friday^ but — thirteen states laid the foun- 
dation for the great empire in the west; two 
omens not yet justified by results. 

In the middle of the Eighteenth Century 
the vast wooded continent had a narrow 
border of civilization on its Atlantic coast, 
composed of thirteen colonies, extending 
from Acadia (Nova Scotia) to Florida, and 
containing something less than two million 
souls. It seems impossible now that less 
than the population of a city like New York 
emj)tied into such an expanse of territory 
could occupy so large a sx)ace in history, and 
it emphasizes the diminishing importance 
of individuals in our changed conditions. 

Almost all of Europe was represented in 
these Colonies. There were Dutch in New 
York; Swedes and Finns in New Jersey, 



76 HISTORY OF THE UN"ITED STATES. 

and Delav/are; Germans in Pennsylvania; 
Scotcli in the Carolinas and New Jer- 
sey; French in South Carolina and Irish 
sprinkled throughout the entire mass — 
which was yet Anglo Saxon to its core. 

The colonies existed under three kinds of 
Government — Charter, Proprietary and 
Royal. 

Charter : — Massachusetts, Rhode Island 
and Connecticut. 

Proprietary : — Maryland, Pennsylvania 
and Delaware. 

Royal: — New York, New Jersey, New 
Hampshire, Virginia, the Carolinas and 
Georgia. 

There were populous cities in which old 
world customs prevailed to a great extent. 
There were six colleges ; Harvard, (1636) 
William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania, and King's, or 
Columbia College ; founded respectively in 
the order named. 

There was in New England a philosophical 
Divine (Jonathan Edwards) writing upon 
profound metaphysical and theological 
problems, — and in Philadelj^hia, which with 
its 25,000 inhabitants led the cities, another 
philosopher who had just arrested the atten- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 77 

tion of Europe by a tract upon electricity 
and of whom the future encyclopedias were 
to say, "Franklin attracted more notice 
in Europe than either Rousseau or Vol- 
taire;'' and of whom William Pitt would 
say in Parliament, "He ranks with Newton 
and is not only an honor to England, but to 
human nature." 

This versatile philosopher and practical 
man of affairs was at the time we are con- 
sidering, (1754) organizing a Postal Service 
for use in all the colonies ; and striving by 
precept and example to keep out the incom- 
ing tide of thrif tlessness and extravagance. 

Social distinctions were rigidly enforced. 
While the Colonial gentleman was resplen- 
dent in satin, velvet, gold lace, and ruffles, 
the working man must wear leather and 
linsey-woolsey, and his wife and daughters 
gowns of green baize. Only the gentry 
might use the prefix Mr. and Mrs. The rest 
must be addressed as Goodman and Good- 
loife. 

In Democratic New England, although 
plain living and high thinking prevailed, 
there was still a stately social life, tempered 
by Puritanism but with class distinctions 
no less rigid than elsewhere.. 



78 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

New York City clung to its old Dutch 
customs, speech, and aristocratic traditions; 
while up the Hudson River were magnates 
like the Livingstons with great estates and 
tenantry and seigniorial rights similar to the 
^'Patroons" near Albany, who kept up a 
stately imitation of a corresponding class in 
Europe ; and in New Jersey, there was a 
large farming class and peasantry. 

The social conditions in the Southern Col- 
onies were entirely different. Instead of 
numerous towns and a large intermediate 
industrial class there were great plantations. 
Each estate was a miniature principality. 
The slaves in separate quarters by themselves 
not only cultivated the land, but followed 
every trade and supplied the common needs 
of the small community, while the owners, 
exchanged stately visits and over their wine 
discussed the Colonial wars, the rights and 
wrongs of Virginia, legislation and customs 
in other Colonies, and the glories of dear old 
England. This aristocratic paternalism had 
an especial charm for English gentlemen, 
with their fondness for country life; and 
numbers of wealthy and influential men had 
joined the colony as its prosperity grew, 
bringing with them old-world habits and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 79 

customs. In Soiitli Carolina, there lingered 
the remains of the "Grand Model." The 
descendants of the "landgraves" and no- 
bles, kept up Manorial dignities on their 
plantations, with stables of blooded horses, 
packs of hunting dogs, and rolling to church 
in coach and six with outriders. European 
luxuries abounded, and hospitality was lav- 
ishly dispensed by the master, who with a 
colony of negroes to do his bidding consid- 
ered work degrading to a white man. Mary- 
land on account of its tobacco-culture and 
slave labor also belonged to this Planter 
Class, which was to exert such an important 
influence in the future. 

In the matter of negro slavery, in its be- 
ginnings the north was no less guilty, than 
the south. The northern colonies made use 
of it, precisely to the extent of its power to 
serve and benefit them. There is no reason 
to believe that with climate and soil ex- 
changed, they would have acted differently 
from the colonies ui^on which the odium now 
rests. Righteous New England bought and 
sold its house-servants with no more qualms 
of conscience, than the Planters in Virginia 
and the Carolinas their field hands. 

There existed, at this period too, a sort of 



80 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

white slavery of wliat were called ' ' inden- 
tured apprentices, ' ' and ' ' bond-servants, ' ' 
poor waifs picked up or stolen in England, 
and bound for a number of years, during 
wliicli time tliey were whipped, cruelly 
treated, and bought and sold like slaves; 
and also another of captive Indians, taken 
during the Colonial or Indian Wars, and 
sold into perj)etual slavery. 

A stream cannot rise higher than its 
source. So it would be unreasonable to ex- 
pect in the English Colonies more develoi3ed 
sensibilities than existed in England at a 
corresponding period. It was an age of se- 
verity untempered with mercy, and we must 
not wonder so much at the pillory, and the 
stocks and whipi^ing posts, and hangings, 
— which belonged to the age, rather than to 
the Colonies which employed them. But it 
is interesting to observe that Pennsylvania, 
the one most merciful in its laws, was the 
quickest in growth and the first to reach 
prosperity. 



CHAPTER X. 

The time had arrived when the French 
and English claims for more than a century 
harmlessly overlax)ping each other on paper, 
must be determined n^on the soil itself. To 
which nation belonged the greater part of 
an unoccupied continent, was a question 
now to be answered. 

The territory lying immediately west and 
north of Virginia was in 1754 covered with 
forest primeval. It had felt no touch of 
human industry since the Mound-Builders. 
A number of gentlemen in Virginia and in 
England believing that this region offered 
esi^ecial advantages for colonization, organ- 
ized a company for that purpose, which they 
called "The Ohio Company." 

France on the alert, accepted this as a 
challenge. The French Commander in Can- 
ada immediately sent a force of 1,200 men 
to occupy the 600,000 acres, claimed by the 
fur-trading company. After conference with 



82 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

other Governors, it was arranged that Gov- 
ernor Dinwiddle of Virginia, should send a 
''person of distinction" to inquire of the 
French Commandant, the reason for this in- 
vasion of British Territory. 

The person selected for this delicate mis- 
sion was a youth ' ' ruddy ' ' and ' ' fair of 
countenance" a little more than 21 years 
old. 

We do not hear that he chose ''live 
smooth stones" from the brook; but, though 
he knew it not, he had been selected from 
among his brethren to slay the giant of op- 
pression and — to rule over the people. 
George Washington returned with the 
haughty reply of General St. Pierre : — " He 
was there to protect French territory. All 
west of the Alleghanys belonged to France, 
and she would maintain her rights." 

War was declared. Not an echo of for- 
eign complications this time, but purely and 
simply a struggle for a continent. 

The French strengthened the defenses at 
the English trading-post, and named it Fort 
Du Quesne, Avhile the colonies met in council 
and formed plans of action; each one oifer- 
ing to raise and equip troops, — "provin- 
cials," — which would act in concert with 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 83 

the British "regulars." Their hearts were 
tired not alone as Americans, but as Anglo- 
Saxons in conflict with the hereditary foe 
of England. The French were sure of pow- 
erful aid from tomahawks and scalx)ing 
knives; while England relied only upon the 
neutrality of the "Five Nations" on her 
northern border. 

In the following eight years there were 
50,000 British troops on American soil. Not 
to jjrotect the colonies, be it remembered, — 
but to "maintain the territorial rights of 
Great Britain in the western Continent. 

The plan of campaign was to move in three 
separate expeditions one toward Fort Du 
Quesne, another toward Fort Frontignac (on 
the St. Lawrence where Ogdensburg stands,) 
and another upon Crown Pointy on Lake 
Cham plain. 

The beginning was inauspicious. General 
Braddock, disregarding the advice of young 
Colonel Washington, used precisely the same 
methods in his attack uj)on the French at 
Fort Du Quesne, that he would have em- 
ployed at Blenheim or Fontenoy. It was 
unbecoming in British soldiers to skulk be- 
hind trees. — As stubborn as he was coura- 
geous he felt contempt alike for "provinci^ 



84 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

al" allies, and Indian enemies. The result 
was wliat Washington had expected, a com- 
plete rout. General Braddock, — sixty-four 
of his officers, and half his command were 
killed. 

Indian atrocities were not the only ones in 
this war. During the first year, 1755, the 
English per^Detrated an act new and unj)aral- 
leled in the history of civilized nations. An 
expedition into Acadia, (Nova Scotia) suc- 
ceeded in capturing Louisburg, the French 
stronghold on Breton Island, and the whole 
region east of the Penobscot was reduced to 
British authority. Fearing to leave the 
seeds of rebellion in the conquered i)rovince, 
the English resorted to an effectual method 
of making them harmless. By artifice, sev- 
eral thousands of simple Acadians were as- 
sembled at one time, then forcibly driven 
on board ships waiting in the harbor for 
that purpose, and scattered as if by the 
winds of Heaven, throughout the length and 
breadth of the land. Longfellow's Evangel- 
ine is only a faint picture of the sorrows of 
husbands, mothers, children, lovers spending 
lives in hopeless and fruitless search for each 
other. 

For four years the English struggled to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 85 

break the line of connection between the 
St. Lawrence and the Mississippi and the 
French struggled to drive them back. 
Countless brave young Englishmen and 
colonists laid down their lives before Ticon- 
deroga, Fort William Henry, and every other 
stronghold ; and Frenchmen no less heroic, 
for whom hearts were aching and breaking 
in France, were lying dead on battle fields. 

By the year 1759, the end was drawing 
near. The English were in possession of 
Forts Du Quesne, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, 
and Niagara, and when General Wolfe's 
intrepid soldiers clambered up the precipi- 
tous bluff and reached the "Heights of 
Abraham," Quebec, the Gibraltar of Ameri- 
ca, capitulated : Wolfe and Montcalm the 
two commanders, both lying dead, uncon- 
scious alike of victory or defeat. 

As the victorious army marched upon 
Montreal and gathered up the forts on the 
border, France formed an alliance with 
Spain, in hope that by a desperate effort she 
might recover her vanishing possessions. 
Spain had her own long-standing grievances 
with England, and had had frequent collis- 
ions with the colonies in her West Indies. 

This effort to prolong the war was quick- 



86 HISTORY OF THE U.N^ITED STATES. 

ly met by England. A fleet was dispatched, 
the City of Havana was captured, and 
several islands besides, — with the result of 
making both France and Spain willing to 
arrange as best they might for peace. 

The treaty was signed at Paris 1763. By 
its provisions Spain ceded to England, 
Florida, and every foot of territory she had 
claimed in North America. In exchange 
the King of Gfreat Britain returned all he 
had conquered in the Island of Cuba, and a 
part of the adjacent Islands. France re- 
linquished her entire western possessions. 
She gave up to England all the territory lying 
on the east of the Mississippi, while to Spain 
she ceded New Orleans and all the territory 
west of the Mississippi. 

Thus ended an attempt to chain the Eng- 
lish colonies to a narrow strip on the coast 
of the Atlantic. France had lost an Empire, 
and the British flag floated from the Arctic 
Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. 

But all this was preparing the way for 
strange and unexpected events ; events 
which would inflict a severer blow upon 
England, than that which was now humbling 
France. England' s vassal was being trained to 
become her rival. She was learning the art of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 8? 

War; becoming inured toliardshij); and had 
discovered the methods and power of com- 
bined action ; white the tliirst for revenge 
was leading to that anomalous act fifteen 
years later, — when a desj^otic French Sov- 
ereign, his own tlirone trembling with the 
spirit of freedom in the air, — lent his aid 
to the cause of liberty and independence. 



CHAPTER XI. 

When England came to count the cost of 
her great American Continent, she resolved 
that the prosperous colonies should bear a 
goodly share of the burden incurred hy a 
war in their behalf! 

There were exaggerated impressions of co- 
lonial prosperity in England. Some Amer- 
ican planters and families here and there 
were living in affluence ; and hospitalities 
shown to the English officers when serving 
in America, contributed to the delusion. 
Cities had vied with each other in entertain- 
ing them, and like Abimelech of old had 
felt a i)ride in displaying their riches to 
guests they desired to honor. 

The Prime Minister recommended that a 
revenue be raised from America to assist in 
paying for the late war in her defense, and 
in 1765 Parliament passed The Stamp Act. 
This Act imposed a tax upon paper, and de- 
clared that all legal documents, unless exe- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 89 

cuted upon paper liaving a Government 
stamjD, should be null and void. 

The colonists were stunned. They waited 
in silent consternation, at a loss how they 
should treat such a monstrous oppression. 
They were perfectly aware that the war was 
not undertaken in their behalf, but to main- 
tain the territorial rights of Great Britain. 
They had shared all its hardships and sacri- 
fices, had spilled precious blood without 
measure, and out of their scanty savings the 
peoi^le had contributed to defray the cost of 
equipping their own soldiers. The small 
prosperity which England wanted them to 
share with her, was of their OAvn making. 
It had not been fostered by a mother's 
hand, but had grown in spite of her ty- 
rannical restrictions, and the almost ruin- 
ous policy she had relentlessly pursued 
toward them. And now, — a Parliament, 
in which they were unrepresented and over 
which they had no control, had devised a 
tax, far more odious than " Ship-Money," 
for which their fathers had rent a Kingdom 
asunder ! 

Virginia, the most filial and royalist of all 
the colonies, was the first to declare her de- 
termination to resist the Act. Patrick Henry 



90 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

broke the spell of silence, by introducing a 
set of resolutions into the legislature. In 
words of burning eloquence he voiced the 
unspoken indignation throughout the land. 
After fierce denunciation of the Act, he ex- 
claimed, " Csesar had his Brutus, — Charles 
the First his Cromwell, — and George the 
Third" — as he paused, a voice cried "Trea- 
son, Treason," — "may profit by their ex- 
ample," concluded Henry, — adding — "If 
that be treason, make the most of it." 

The effect was electrical. The latent 
sparks kindled into flame leaping from col- 
ony to colony; and in that conflagration, — 
patriotism was born. 

All local differences were forgotten. Nine 
colonies met in a Council held in New York. 
The others being forbidden by their Gov- 
ernors to join them, sent assurances of their 
determination to unite with them in what- 
ever course was adopted. They pledged 
themselves to import no article of British 
manufacture until the Act was repealed. 
Domestic goods dearer and coarser were 
cheerfully exchanged for foreign luxuries, 
and lamb and mutton were abandoned as 
articles of food, in order to increase the 
supply of wool. Franklin wrote, " the sun 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 91 

of liberty is set, we nrnst liglit up the can- 
dles of industry and economy." 

It seems not to have occurred to the Brit- 
ish mind that the tax would be resisted. 
Englishmen might resist Kings, but not Par- 
liaments ! Besides the law was ingenious and 
enforced itself in the insecurity to property 
which would follow its non-observance. But 
the petitions, and remonstrances, and decla- 
rations, and even threats, produced astonish- 
ment. What! Shall we who have just 
humbled France and Spain be dictated to by 
our Colonies, planted by our care, nourished 
by our indulgence, and j)rotected by our 
arms ? 

British Statesmanship was confounded. 
William Pitt said in the House of Commons, 
** I rejoice that America has resisted. Three 
million people so lost to virtue as tamely to 
give up their liberties, would be fit only for 
slaves." More important still, manufactur- 
ers and merchants saw ruin staring them in 
the face in the sudden withdrawal of their 
best customers. A blow aimed at prosperity 
is the most convincing of arguments. The 
Stamp Act was repealed 1766. 

The news was received in the Colonies 
with extravagant demonstrations of joy. 



92 HISTORY OF THE UN'ITED STATES. 

The bells were rung, tliere was tlianl^sgiving 
in the Churches, homespun garments were 
given to the x)oor, and loyalty and affection 
returned. 

But after this first ebullition of gratitude, 
a careful reading of the Repeal disclosed, 
that it was ' ' to avoid the inconveniences at- 
tending the collection of the revenue." The 
right of taxation by Parliament had not 
been abandoned, and might be asserted 
again. Almost before the echoes of the 
bells had died away, another Act was passed, 
less oppressive in its conditions, but firmly 
reasserting the principle, and vindicating a 
policy which England had deliberately de- 
termined to follow. 

The small tax upon glass, paper and tea, 
would probably have been paid, but for the 
recent tension over the Stamp Act. But that 
had left a sharply defined issue. The colo- 
nies would not be taxed by a body in which 
they were not represented. England by 
this last Act declared as firmly, that Parlia- 
ment had the disputed right, and would en- 
force it. 

The colonies were not ignorant of English 
history. They knew that this Parliament, 
held so sacred in England, was the creation 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 93 

of just such resistance as theirs. It had 
been clothed with snch supreme authority, 
because of just such wrongs as this now at- 
tempted ux3on them. It had become greater 
than Kings, precisely to maintain the j)rin- 
cij)le, that the people must not he taxed 
without their consent. This was the very 
central nerve of British freedom. Should 
they, — because they had come to a distant 
land, and with toil and hardship built up a 
young civilization, — should they for this, 
surrender the very principle that made them 
freemen? If they did, they were the sub- 
jects of subjects, — not the subjects of a 
King. 

It would have been well for England if 
she had left unbroken the relations with 
thirteen loyal colonies, disposed not to 
question the right of the Mother Country so 
long as they were treated fairly well. She 
made a grave mistake when she invited a 
searching into the title-deeds of her author- 
ity. An army of trained and acute intelli- 
gences were examining other matters be- 
sides taxation and representation. Some 
questioned whether tliere should be any 
taxing at all. By careful calculations it 
was demonstrated that by her monopoly of 



94 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

their trade, England every year wrung from 
tlie colonies a sum in excess of tlieir share 
of the public burden; and that taxation su- 
peradded to that, — with representation or 
without it, — reduced them to the condition 
of uncomi3ensated slaves. And, what right 
had a body in which they were not repre- 
sented to make laws for them, any more 
than to tax them ! 

The more America read and reasoned, and 
talked, the more was she convinced. The 
vindication of her attitude and the argu- 
ments in support of lier rights became famil- 
iar even to the children; and three millions 
of people were being educated in tlie princi- 
X)les of liberty, and the ignominy of aban- 
doning them. 

So while the question of "rights" had 
grown far beyond its original limits, Eng- 
land was startled by a declaration from each 
of the Assemblies, that not only had she not 
the right to tax, but not even to legislate for 
the colonies. This was in response to a cir- 
cular letter sent by Massachusetts, that hot- 
bed of sedition, to the various legislatures. 
Massachusetts was called upon to rescind 
her resolutions and recall her letter, which 
she unequivocally refused to do. 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 95 

The people had not only a clearer compre- 
hension of their rights than before, but a 
new consciousness of x^^wer. They had 
learned that by refusing to purchase British 
wares they could shake British prosperity 
to its centre. They returned to their home- 
spun; relighted "the candles of industry 
and economy. ' ' They would get along with- 
out glass, paper, and even — tea. 

Custom House officials had sinecures. 
There were no duties to collect, nor duties to 
perform, except that of sx)ying upon sus- 
pected persons and ships, in liope of finding- 
smuggled goods. The commissioner in Bos- 
ton made himself especially odious at a time 
when the temper of that town was not, to 
say the least, at its best. His house was 
assaulted by a jeering mob, his windows 
broken and some of his effects were burned 
on Boston Common. In punishment for 
this, two regiments of British soldiers were 
marched into Boston and quartered upon the 
people, 1768. New York refused to shelter 
and feed a similar body of troops sent to dis- 
cipline her; and her legislature was at once 
dissolved. A collision took place in Bos- 
ton, between exasperated and exasperating 
troops, and an equally exas^^erated and 



96 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

exasperating mob. Citizens were killed, 
causing fresli bitterness and rage. 

There were peace-makers on both sides of 
the Atlantic striving to heal the widening 
breach. — William Pitt (then in i)rivate life,) 
and Edmund Burke, by eloquence and argu- 
ment endeavoring to restrain offensive legis- 
lation in Parliament, and Franklin and others 
in America counselling moderation and only 
j)eacef ul modes of obtaining redress. Royal 
Governors were everywhere striving to carry 
out obnoxious instructions. Assemblies 
everywhere protesting, and the colonists 
with unbroken front decla^ring they would 
pay no taxes, excex)t at the bidding of their 
own Assemblies, that these bodies, stood in 
the same relation to them, as did the House 
of Commons, to the peojole in England. 

In 1773, the tax was removed from every- 
thing but tea. By an arrangement with the 
East India Company this was to be brought 
direct from India to America; thus lessen- 
ing its cost so much, that with a tax of only 
three pence a pound, it would yield a reve- 
nue to the Government and yet be cheaj)er 
than ever before. It Avas a cunning bribe 
for America to accept the XDrinciple of taxa- 
tion in exchange for cheai3 tea. 



HISTOKY OF THE UKITED STATES. 97 

When the ships arrived, Charleston 
stored her tea in damp cellars, and other 
ports refused to admit it at all. But the 
cargo designed for Boston, came consigned 
to personal friends of the Governor, and 
could not be excluded. A body of men dis- 
guised as Indians, boarded the ship at night, 
and emx3tied the tea into the harbor. 

The climax was reached. The port of 
Boston was closed by Act of Parliament. 
The colony of Massachusetts was placed un- 
der martial law, and General Gage, the offi- 
cer in command of the troops, took the 
place of the former Hoyal Governor. Busi- 
ness was suspended and suffering and dis- 
tress took the j)lace of prosperity. 

The Virginia Assembly appointed a day 
of fasting, and denounced the act as one of 
intolerable opx)ression to a sister colony. 
In punishment for this her Legislature was 
immediately dissolved by the Governor. 
Patrick Henry' s impassioned words, ' ' give 
me liberty or give me death," became the 
watchword for men throughout the length 
and breadth of the land, who irrespective 
of minor differences, banded together and 
called themselves "Whigs," while those 
who failed to declare a symx)athy with the 



98 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

uprising against tyranny, were as in Eng- 
land, known as "Tories." Military com- 
panies were formed and ' ' minute men ' ' 
were drilling from Maine to South Carolina. 
"The sons of liberty," which had been or- 
ganized in each of the colonies in the days 
of the Stamp Act, now drew into a closer 
union; and the thirteen colonies, — so di- 
verse in creeds, in tastes and in character, 
were fused by the white heat of patriotism. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Iisr August, just four months after the 
closing of the port of Boston, delegates from 
all the colonies met at Philadelphia to de- 
termine upon a concerted j^lan of action. 

No men sitting in the British Parliament 
were more loyal subjects of Great Britain 
than those comj)osing the First Colonial 
Congress. It was not a Revolutionary body. 
They came together not in the heat of pas- 
sion, with no thought of separation nor de- 
sire for independence, but simply as British 
subjects, calmly and firmly, and with im- 
pressive dignity insisting upon tlie rights 
guaranteed them by the British Constitu- 
tion. They did not intend to examine with 
unfriendly eyes into the authority of the 
Mother Country. They were willing to 
abandon every point of controversy, except 
one. England might continue to enjoy the 
entire benefit of their prosj^erity ; she might 
absorb for herself the commercial advan- 



100 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

tages of tliirteen expanding colonies ; but, 
tlie riglits of Englishmen in America must 
be as sacred as tliey would be in England. 
Tliey must not be taxed without tlieir con- 
sent. That power must be transferred to 
their own legislative bodies. There must 
be no standing army in tlieir land, except 
by consent of these same legislatures ; and, 
citizens must have the privilege of trial by 
their peers in their own realm, — and not be as 
was threatened, — dragged from their homes 
to be tried by juries of strangers in England. 
Certain Acts i^assed in the reign of his 
majesty George the Third, were declared to 
be unconstitutional, and would be resisted. 

A league was formed for non-importation 
— non-consum]3tion — and non-exportation. 
The members of the Congress bound them- 
selves by all they held sacred, not to import, 
nor to consume foreign goods, nor to export 
their own, until their demands were met. 

Foreign merchants were to be warned to 
send no goods, and if sent, — they would be 
returned with packages unopened. 

The wearing of mourning for their dead 
was to be abandoned. Venders of merchan- 
dise were also instructed not to take advan- 
tage of the scarcity by raising prices. The 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 101 

names of persons wlio should violate these 
restrictions were to be published. 

The i^roceedings of this Congress, and in- 
deed the creation of the Congress itself, fell 
as a thunderbolt in England, where an in- 
fatuated ministry and short-sighted King 
had believed they were dealing with a few 
troublesome malcontents in Massachusetts, 
-and a factious minority here and there. 
They had always sux3posed they could rely 
upon the natural antagonisms between the 
colonies to prevent any permanent concerted 
action; and that local jealousies and aver- 
sions would always enable England to deal 
with them separately instead of collectively. 

But England did not comprehend the 
strange and unseen influence which was 
working upon these antagonistic j)articles. 
Virginia might have said to Massachusetts 
*'what am I to Hecuba, or Hecuba to me, 
tlmt I should weep for her ? ' ' But she did 
not. She rushed to her rescue, and felt the 
blow as if it were aimed at herself. The 
children of Puritan, Cavalier, and the Neth- 
erlands; Catholic, Calvinist and Quaker, 
rushed together by common impulse, and 
acted as if inspired by one mind and pos- 
sessed of one soul. Merchants without hesi- 



102 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tation or regret, put behind them the hope 
of gain and accepted a total stoj)page of 
business. Planters and farmers eagerly as- 
sented to letting their hard-earned harvests 
lie unsold. Pleasure-loving sons and daugh- 
ters, were willing to lay aside soft raiment 
and tempting food. And all these sacriiices 
were made at the bidding of a voluntary 
association of men, not invested with any 
legislative authority. 

The drastic measures of the King in clos- 
ing the port of Boston had not the ai3j)i'oval 
of the whole of his people. Many prophe- 
sied a retaliatory course, such as had been 
provoked by the Stamp Act. So as a meas- 
ure of prudence Lord North thought it 
would be wise to have the impending elec- 
tion for new members of Parliament safely 
over, before receiving any news from Amer- 
ica, which might bring from the people a 
vote of censure. This worked well, and by 
the time the proceedings of the Colonial 
Congress arrived, the new Parliament was 
seated, constituted as before of upholders 
of the King and Ministry. 

The weight and influence of the members 
of the Colonial Congress, the dignity and 
firmness of its demands, and the declaration 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 103 

of an inflexible purpose to suspend all com- 
mercial relations with England until these 
demands were met, produced a profound 
sensation. 

The repeal of a few Acts of Parliament 
was all that was needed to restore tranquil- 
lity. But to recede would be an admission 
that they had been wrong. The current was 
moving swifter and faster than they had ex- 
I)ected. It was in vain that the Great Earl 
of Chatham, (the elder Pitt) led the party of 
conciliation in the House of Commons, his 
plans for compromise were rudely received, 
and consigned to what was wittily called the 
"Committe of Oblivion;" in vain that 
Burke spake as man has rarely spoken in 
ancient or in modern times ; in vain that 
Franklin appeared before the bar of the 
House of Commons with ingenious conces- 
sions, and temperate statements, striving by 
gentle skill to draw the thunderbolt from the 
impending storm clouds. The witty satire 
of his i)amplilet entitled ' ' Rules for reducing 
a Great Empire to a small one," was not for- 
gotten. The British lion may be prodded, but 
he must not be laughed at. Lord Sandwich, 
trembling with rage, pointed to the white 
haired peace maker saying: "There is the 



104 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

man who is one of the bitterest and most 
mischievous enemies England ever knew." 

Argument was met by invective ; reason- 
ing by denunciation and insult. The record 
of those proceedings is unequaled for a dis- 
play of passion and prejudice and party 
spirit, combined with a singular ignorance, 
or else misconception, — of the real points in 
disx^ute, and proclaims those legislators, 
sitting in the British Parliament in 1774, to 
have been utterly unfit to rule the destinies 
of three million intelligent Anglo Saxons on 
the other side of the globe. 

The Rubicon was passed. The House of 
Commons besought the King, in view of "the 
Rebellion now existing in the colonies" to 
take the most effectual measures for enforc- 
ing of obedience, and declared their fixed 
resolution, at the hazard of their lives and 
property, to stand by him in the mainten- 
ance of his authority. 

The peace makers had failed. There were 
larger and greater plans for America than 
any contemplated, even by her friends and 
advocates. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The American Colonies were tinder no 
glamour regarding tlieir own unfitness to 
undertake a conflict with the greatest mili- 
tary nation in Euroj)e; a nation which had 
just humbled France and Spain in combina- 
tion. 

They had no army, no fortifications, nor 
military engineers — almost no arms or am- 
munition, nor means to get them. They 
were cut off by 3,000 miles of ocean from the 
sources of sui)x>ly, and with British ships 
policing their harbors to prevent foreign 
imj)ortation of goods. They had no j)ublic 
treasury, no machinery for raising money, 
and the dependence of thirteen separate 
provinces ui)on England had made them un- 
familiar with the general finances of the 
country, or methods of reaching its re- 
sources. 

The revenues of England were immense. 
The drain ujDon her, caused by a war, would 



106 HISTORY OF THE UN^ITED STATES. 

not be appreciably felt by a single individ- 
ual in the kingdom. In America, it would 
involve sacrifices for every liuman being, and 
ruin for thousands. 

But was there a man dismayed? — not 
though they knew it would cost lives and 
homes and the hoarded savings of years. 

Men were silently and secretly busy col- 
lecting and storing arms for an emergency, 
which might at any moment arrive. Gen- 
eral Gage learned that quite a large amount 
of military stores were concealed at Con- 
cord, and ordered 800 men to march there 
during the night of April 18th (1755) and 
destroy them. 

Some such attempt had been apprehend- 
ed. By a preconcerted signal the neighbor- 
ing farmers were alarmed, and Paul Revere 
sped on his historic ride to awaken Charles- 
town and the hamlets by the way. 

•' A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: 
That was all ! And yet, throngh the gloom and the 

light. 
The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed, in its flight. 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat." 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 107 

The eight "minute men" killed at the 
dawn of that morning, April 19th, were the 
first martyrs to the cause of American liber- 
ty. The military stores had been destroyed, 
but at the cost of 300 British lives, — and of 
one British illusion. These Americans were 
not "cowards." 

It was an amazing display of naked valor, 
when that undisciplined, unofficered yeo- 
manry, each man firing when he saw fit 
without word of command, put to fiight 
troops equal in discipline to any in the 
world. As the news spread through the 
colonies, the country breathed freer. When 
Washington heard that the boys had not 
only "stood the fire of the Regulars," but 
reserved their own ' ' till they saw the w^hites 
of the enemies' eyes," he exclaimed, "Then 
the liberties of the country are safe." 

A granite monument now marks the spot 
where the love of the colonies for their 
mother England was forever estranged. 
Cut into its base are Emerson's Avords : — 

' ' Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

When at the time appointed. May 10th, 
1775, the Second Continental Congress as- 



108 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

sembled at Philadelphia, it found itself con- 
fronted with a tremendous responsibility, 
and with no regularly constituted authority. 
It could advise, but not legislate. 

There was perfect unanimity as before. 
An attack upon Massachusetts was an attack 
upon the whole. The United Colonies of 
America were at war with Great Britain. 
Each one pledged itself to contribute troo^is 
for a Continental Army of 30,000 men. Two 
million dollars were also pledged for the 
maintenance of the Avar, to be contributed 
by the colonies upon vague promises of be- 
ing reimbursed at some future time. 

Side by side with these preparations for a 
conflict, was a fresh Memorial to George the 
Third, expressing their continued desire to 
remain loyal subjects of Great Britain, and 
praying for a redress of grievances. Wash- 
ington sitting in this very Congress wrote 
to a friend that he "abhorred the idea of 
independence." 

Even while these last efforts at peace were 
making in Congress, the flames were spread- 
ing. Many thousand fresh British troojos 
were arriving in Boston under Generals 
Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, and Ethan Al- 
len with a handful of men was surprising the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 109 

garrison at Fort Ticonderoga which he 
claimed ' ' in the name of Jehovah and the 
Continental Congress." The capture was 
made in ten minutes, without the loss of one 
life or limb, and an immense supply of can- 
non and war material warmed the courage 
of the people. 

The British discovered in the morning of 
the 17th of June (1775) that eartliworks had 
been thrown up on the heights overlooking 
Boston, and General Howe was ordered with 
a force of 2,000 men to storm the work. Ac- 
customed to victories over French and Span- 
ish legions, fighting only for a change of 
masters, the General supposed he had an 
easy task. The "embattled farmers" did 
not seem to him as impressive as to Emerson 
a century later. But v/hen the sun Avent 
down, although he held the heights, he 
had been twice reinforced from Boston, 
and the battle of Bunker Hill was one of 
the emptiest, and costliest victories ever 
achieved. It would have been a defeat had 
not the powder of the colonists been ex- 
hausted. One-half of Howe's command was 
dead, including a disproportionate number 
of officers. 

The burning of Charlestown helloed to 



110 HISTORY OF THE UJflTED STATES. 

make tlie day, the most momentous in the 
history of the Colonies. It was the first real 
battle of the war, and had been fought in 
the light of five hundred burning homes, 
with a fury and yet a deliberate courage 
which astonished the British General. Gen- 
eral Gage wrote home " tliese rebels, are not 
the despicable rabble many suppose them 
to be." 

The hopes of the colonists from the very first 
gravitated toward one man — George Wash- 
ington. The liberties and the very existence 
of America are so intertwined with the name 
of Washington, it is impossible to conceive 
what would have been its fate without him. 
When the Colonial Congress called into ex- 
istence a Continental Army, he alone was 
thought of as its Commander in Chief. 
Ever since his campaign in Ohio had termi- 
nated with the capture of Fort DuQuesne 
(1758) he had been enjoying a tranquil re- 
pose upon his estate at Mount Vernon. 

Great Britain had no more loyal, peace- 
loving subject than this man, to whom the 
very name of "independence" was ab- 
horrent. 

Still without hesitation he consented to 
lead an army against the Government he had 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Ill 

SO revered. He replied that he felt unequal 
to the great trust — but would accept it, con- 
tinuing, in regard to the pay offered him, — 
"I beg leave to assure Congress that no 
pecuniary consideration would tempt me to 
accept this arduous position. I wish to 
make no pro lit from it. I will keep an 
account of my expenses. Those I doubt 
not they will discharge. That is all I 
desire." 

The "army" of which he took command 
on the third of July 1775, was the brave, 
undisciplined host intrenched about Boston, 
without uniform or drill. Each man brought 
his own musket, — if he had one, — and sub- 
sisted mainly upon food sent him from liis 
own home. Not one of them believed that 
more than two or three months of service 
would be required, but that a determined 
show of resistance would bring a redress of 



grievances. 



While the Commander in Chief was trying 
to organize an Army out of such material, 
the fires were spreading in remote parts. 
The brave Moultrie from his fort of pal- 
metto logs on Sullivan's Island, was success- 
fully defending the harbor of Charleston 
from a British fieet ; and the heroic Mont- 



112 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gomery from New York was laying down 
Ms yonng life in an effort to capture Quebec. 
Royal Governors were everywhere abdica- 
ting and biding on British ships from ex- 
asperated colonists ; and when the news was 
received that England was sending 45,000 
more trooi^s, and that of these 17,000 were 
Hessians hired from a German Principality 
for the subjection of her own colonists, 
every lingering sentiment of love and loyal- 
ty was extinguished. North Carolina, in 
advance of all the rest, passed at Charlotte, 
a set of resolutions renouncing allegiance to 
King and Parliament. 

It is strange to relate the birth of a new 
colony in these days of storm and stress. 
The meadow lands of the Kentucky river 
were purchased from the Cherokees, and 
foundations laid by the adventurous Daniel 
Boone for the first State west of the Alle- 
ghanies. 

A letter from Lord Howe addressed to 
" George Washington, Esq.," was returned 
by the Commander in Chief unopened, and 
when personally solicited to read it as it con- 
cerned ''pardons," he calmly answered that 
"A pardon implied an offense. They had 
committed no offense, and hence desired no 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 113 

pardons." There are two kinds of heroism. 
The heroism which dares and achieves, and 
the one which waits. In the long winter be- 
fore Boston, the men impatient to get back 
to farms and homes, and the colonists eager 
for quick results, began to express their dis- 
satisfaction. Washington's motives were 
assailed. It was said he wished to prolong 
the war for the sake of wearing the honors 
of his command. He could have answered 
these calumnies in a moment, by telling the 
country that 2,000 of his men were without 
muslvets, and there were deficiencies in suj)- 
plies of all kinds which would make it disas- 
trous to move yet. But this would reveal his 
weakness to the enemy, and dampen the 
courage of the Americans. To rule his spirit 
was "greater than to take a city," — and he 
was silent. In March he was ready for an 
attack. 

But when General Howe saw the earth- 
works being thrown up, on Dorchester 
Heights, he evacuated Boston without an 
engagement. Wasliington aware that New 
York would be the destination of the British 
prepared to meet them there. 

On the 7th of June, 1776, Richard Henry 
Lee of Virginia, offered a resolution in Con- 



114 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

gress ' ' that these United Colonies are, and 
of right ought to be, free and independent 
States." The resolution was adopted, and a 
•' Declaration of Independence" written by 
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, was published 
to the world July the Fourth. It declared 
that in view of certain Acts, which it recited, 
^ ' the United States of America, was absolved 
from all allegiance to the British Crown." 



5J 



CHAPTER XIV. 

One week after the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, Admiral Howe arrived in New York 
Harbor, with a powerful fleet. His brother 
was encamped upon Staten Island with 
30,000 British and Hessians. Such was the 
force with which Washington was to con- 
tend, with his 7,000 raAV recruits, scantily 
fed, clothed and armed. It is not strange 
that the history of the next five months 
was one of disaster and retreat. One x^oint 
after another was occupied then evacuated, 
and left to the pursuing army; Long Island, 
Harlem Heights, White Plains, Fort Wash- 
ington, then across the river to Fort Lee and 
thence on toward Philadelphia through the 
Jerseys, already occupied by the Hessians. 

There was none of the elation attending 
victory, only unmitigated hardship. In De- 
cember the patriot army was a handful of 
ragged disheartened fugitives, many with- 
out shoes, leaving bloodstained footsteps on 



116 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tlie frozen ground. The British General 
scornfully smiled and said he only asked for 
a Corporal's guard to keep New Jersey. 
New York City was in the hands of the 
British, and many influential people there 
and elsewhere, had gone over to the victo- 
rious enemy, expressing penitence for dis- 
loyal sympathies. Washington had a dis- 
solving and expiring army on his hands, 
men half naked and hungry, impatient for 
their discharge, and recruiting for a new 
one under such disheartening circumstances 
was impossible. Many believed that a rash 
and ill-considered rebellion was nearing its 
end ; and that instead of glory, and liberty, 
and independence, history would have to 
relate the ignominious punishment of a few 
leaders who had mistaken passion and rest- 
lessness under restraint, for high-sounding 
virtues. 

But, suddenly there was a flash of light 
out of the darkness. — Christmas night, in a 
driving storm of sleet and snow, and amid 
drifting masses of ice, which threatened 
every minute to crush the boats, Washing- 
ton crossed the Delaware river, and surpris- 
ing the Hessians in the midst of their festi- 
vities at Trenton, captured 1,000 men with 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 117 

the loss of but four of his own ; two killed 
and two frozen to death. Then before Corn- 
wallis could recover from his astonishment, 
they had moved swiftly and unexpectedly 
upon Princeton, routed the trooj)s and by 
rapid marches the exhausted army was safe 
in winter quarters at Morristown. 

The effect was electrical. Courage, hope, 
and patriotism were revived. Instead of 
being rei)roached for incapacity, as hitherto, 
Washington was called the Saviour of the 
army. But while his praises were resound- 
ing, he was striving by superhuman effort 
to conceal the desperate condition of his 
command, shut up for the winter months in 
Morristown, men poorly clad, sullen and 
resentful on account of delayed payments, 
the inhabitants not too well i)leased at hav- 
ing soldiers with smallpox quartered in their 
homes, sickness and death from unaccus- 
tomed exposure, and no hospital service. 
It would have seemed that such a Winter of 
discontent could not be exceeded. But it 
was. The end was far off. There were Win- 
ters yet to come, which made this seem al- 
most like luxury. We can only dimly 
realize what our liberties have cost. Even 
to-day 70,000,000 x)eople do not contemplate 



118 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

a war with Great Britain witliout alarm ; 
and here were 3,000,000, something more 
than the inhabitants of New York City, 
maintaining a war with that power, defend- 
ing territory at a hnndred points from the 
St. Lawrence to the gnlf . Can we wonder 
that the men were not well-clothed, nor well 
sheltered, nor armed, even after homes had 
been emptied of blankets and comforts 
which might be spared for the poor boys in 
the field ! But the Commander in Chief 
must not appeal to sympathies ; he must in- 
si)ire, and spread the splendid contagion of 
hope. He must make the country and the 
enemy believe in his invincibility, and de- 
ploy his small forces so as to keep up the 
delusion regarding his strength. 

The brilliant victories by which Washing- 
ton had turned upon his pursuers attracted 
attention in Europe, as well as in America. 

It gave prestige to a waning cause. There 
were obvious reasons why France was 
pleased. Her pride had received a terrible 
wound in the loss of her American Emx3ire. 
She would adore the man or nation which 
could humiliate England. Besides this, 
there was something new and strange in the 
air of France. There was a searching into 



HISTORY OF T.nE UNITED STATES. 119 

the title deeds of Governments — an oiit- 
reacliing after freedom. — It was only "in 
the air, ' ' only an abstraction ; — but it pleased 
the French fancy to see a brave people 
across the sea, experimenting with liberty, 
— and at the same time dealing hard blows at 
Great Britain ! 

The Marquis de La Fayette, a French no- 
bleman, less than twenty years of age filled, 
with romantic ardor, fitted out a ship at his 
own expense, and bringing with him a num- 
ber of friends, placed his services at tlie 
disposal of America, for which he declined 
to receive any compensation. Three of his 
friends. Baron de Kalb, a German veteran, 
Count Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciusko, 
two distinguished Polish patriots also en- 
tered the Colonial army. 

The x>lan of the English Campaign was for 
Burgoyne to press down from Canada while 
Cornwallis moved up the Hudson to make a 
junction with his forces at Albany. The 
Britisli lleet in the meantime was co-opera- 
ting on the coast, while Howe was moving 
on toward Philadelphia. In September 1777 
Philadelj^liia was in the hands of the British. 
The battles of Brandy wine and German town 
having been vainly fought to prevent it. 



120 HISTORY 0.F THE UNITED STATES. 

Burgoyne had captured Fort Ticonderoga, 
and had succeeded in reaching tlie head 
waters of the Hudson. There his progress 
was stopi)ed. At Bemis' Heights, — twenty- 
live miles from Albany he was defeated in 
two engagements, called the "battles of 
Stillwater." Retreat was cut off in every 
direction, and on the 16th of October 1777, 
he surrendered his entire army to General 
Gates. This was an enormous heli3 to the 
American cause. But it was only one of 
the heads of the hydra encompassing the 
colonies. 

Two months after Burgoyne' s surrender, 
Congress sent to the Colonies for ratification 
"Articles of Confederation," which were in 
fact a constitution authorizing Congress to 
carry on War, and to decide upon finan- 
cial and war measures. This gave some 
structure and firmness to a body which had 
heretofore been only a patriotic association 
with advisory powers. 

In December Washington went into win- 
ter quarters at Valley Forge, from which 
jDoint he could watch the movements about 
Philadelphia. While the royalists were 
feasting in that city, and revelling in com- 
forts, his men were in rude huts, without 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 12 i 

blankets for the night or clothes for the day; 
— often destitute of food, and cutting their 
naked feet in marches over ice and snow. 
Their situation was far more desperate than 
the year before at Morristown. To keep an 
army from falling to pieces under such cir- 
cumstances was sufficient test of fortitude, 
but Washington had to bear more. An in- 
trigue was. set on foot by enemies to deface 
his reputation, and deprive him of his com- 
mand. It is pleasant to relate that this was 
met with sucli a storm of indignation that 
the instigators were obliged to hide from its 
wrath. 

While Washington was enduring this win- 
ter of deepest darkness at Valley Forge, the 
British Parliament was discussing concilia- 
tory measures. It had never dreamed of 
such prolonged resistance, and tlie surrender 
of Burgoyne had caused consternation. 
Lord North himself drafted a Bill, wliich 
speedily passed. It did not concede 
what America now demanded — indepen- 
dence, — but all that she had asked in the be- 
ginning of the war. 

Anotlier result from the surrender was 
about to be realized. Franklin had long 
cherished the plan of an Alliance witli 



122 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

France. His reputation as a Pliilosoplier, liis 
tact and delightful social qualities made him 
a favorite in the French Capital. He was 
commissioned with two others Silas Deane, 
and Arthur Lee, to open negotiations with 
the Government of France upon this subject, 
which resulted February 6th, 1778 in a 
Treaty of Alliance between that country, and 
the Infant Republic. The fate of the strug- 
gle, and the future of America was deter- 
mined by the signing of that paper. 

The effect of the Alliance was immediate. 
The British evacuated Philadelphia in June, 
in order to concentrate their forces at New 
York, before the coming of a French fleet 
and armament. They were none too soon. 
In July the French flag was flying off the 
coast of Rhode Island. 

The northern States had hitherto been the 
principal theatre of the war, but in 1778 and 
1779, it was carried on vigorously at the 
South. Savannah was captured December 
29th (1778). The Carolinas were the chief 
object of this Southern invasion, and were 
ravaged until the surrender of Charleston, 
May 12, 1780, when royal authority was re- 
stored, and South Carolina was held by Brit- 
ish garrisons stationed at various points of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 123 

the State; Generals Marion, Sumter and 
Pickens struggling heroically to drive the 
intruders out. 

American privateers had joined the French 
cruisers on the coast, and one of the most 
desperate naval combats in history, was 
fought by John Paul Jones, in which he 
captured two English frigates and a fleet of 
merchantmen, and it is said, in six weeks 
took sixteen rich j)rizes for the States. 

French aid had enabled the Americans 
to prolong the struggle, but it had not 
brought the decisive victories which had 
been hoi3ed. 

The country began to feel exhausted, and 
the depreciation of the bills of credit called 
Continental Money caused renewed dis- 
tress and alarm. Soldiers had not been paid 
for months, and were almost in revolt. 

Making money out of j)aper answered well 
for a time. When one million was gone, 
another could be created by the same legis- 
lative magic. But the time soon came when 
forty dollars were needed to represent the 
value of one, and when at last it needed six 
hundred dollars more than a year's pay, to 
purchase a pair of shoes, the manufacture 
of money became an unpopular industry. 



124 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

La Fayette, America' s untiring friend re- 
turned to France, and prevailed upon Louis 
Xyi to send more troops and money for tlie 
cause. Count de Rocliambeau arrived in 
July (1780) with another fleet and 6,000 
troops. But the British fleet had also been 
reinforced, and there was a long and ineffec- 
tual struggle off the Rhode Island coast for 
possession of Newport. 

Through all these years of desperate trial 
and discouragement there had never been 
one traitor to the American cause. But the 
Summer of 1780 was marked by a disgrace- 
ful act committed by one of the most trusted 
and valued of the American Officers. Bene- 
dict Arnold on account of a supposed in- 
jury inflicted by the Commander in Chief, 
X^lanned in revenge an act of unmatched 
treachery. It was not done impulsively, 
but after fourteen months of shameless bar- 
gaining with the British. He asked to be 
put in Command of West Point, then the 
most important post in the country, control- 
ling as it did the Hudson. It was agreed 
with Clinton that the British should at- 
tack it in force, and Arnold would so man 
the defences that they must fall without a 
blow. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 125 

The plot was discovered and Arnold es- 
caped, receiving his reward, — from the 
British, a large sum of money and a com- 
mission as Brigadier General, and from his 
country, undjdng execration and contempt. 
The immediate punishment which should 
have been his, fell upon Major John Andre, 
the young and accomplished Adjutant of 
General Clinton. He was the bearer of the 
treasonable papers, and these were found 
hidden in his stocking when he was 
seized. 

A monument to Nathan Hale the boy 
martyr stands in New York City, and 
another a few miles above on the banks of 
the Hudson, marks the spot where Andre 
the s%>y was captured. Whether the boy, 
risking his life in carrying to Washington 
plans of British fortifications on Long 
Island, was more of a hero than the British 
officer conveying to General Clinton plans 
for the surrender of West Point, depends 
upon the point of view. Thousands of lives 
laid down in battle-fields, touch one's sym- 
pathies less to-day, than the deliberate mur- 
der of these two young soldiers by the rules 
of war. People stojj in the busy street in 
New York and gaze with wet eyes at the 



126 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

resolute, eager face of tlie boy whose arms 
are rudely tied beliind him witli ropes. But 
Andre the beautiful English youth, writing 
his pathetic farewell to his Mother and his 
betrothed in England, touches us no less 
deeply than Hale, — standing under the fatal 
rope, regretting that — "he had but one life 
to lose for his Country." 



CHAPTER XV. 

While the storm centre had moved to the 
Carolinas, it still raged in desultory manner 
at the north. The French fleet hovered 
about the coast of Rhode Island, always 
threatening and sometimes attacking. Clin- 
ton at New York, did little more than 
defend posts on tlie Hudson from cap- 
ture, and send predatory expeditions into 
Connecticut. It was in one of these that 
Putnam made the famous dash down the 
stony declivity at Greenwich. A British 
force had entered the town, plundered the 
houses and destroyed the salt works. Put- 
nam hastily got together a few men and 
field pieces, which he used with effect, until 
a charge comj^elled a retreat, and he putting 
spurs to his horse plunged down the preci- 
X)ice amidst a rain of balls. It was in this 
summer too that the tragedy occurred in 
the Valley of Wyoming, in Pennsylvania, 
caused by the Indians in alliance with some 



128 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Tories. In fact there were few places wliere 
there was peace or safety. 

The wonder is that such a frail, ragged 
mantle of defence stretched over such an 
expanse, held together at all. But it did. 
When it gave way in one place, it was 
mended again. The patch was not always 
seemly, but it served. The depreciation of 
the currency was the gravest danger, be- 
cause it threatened the entire fabric. When 
it required two hundred and fifty Continen- 
tal dollars to purchase what had once been 
obtained by one, it needed heroism not to 
despair. 

In 1781, General Greene had succeeded 
Gates and was pressing down toward the 
south, while the British army had a steady 
movement toward the north. The two 
storm clouds moved around and about each 
other, avoiding collision until at last both 
were hovering over Virginia. 

Cornwallis had fortified himself at York- 
town. An attack was planned by the com- 
bined French and American troops. A 
French fieet under de Grasse was silently 
moving toward the Chesapeake. Wash- 
ington by a pretended attack upon New 
York disarmed Clinton's suspicions and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 129 

was far on his way south with his army be- 
fore his destination was susi)ected. 

Before the British realized what was being 
done, Yorktown was invested, and Corn- 
wallis was hemmed in uj)on every side by a 
force double his own. No alternative re- 
mained. On October 19th, 1781, the British 
army was surrendered to Washington, — 
and the war was closed. 

Cities at the north were awakened in the 
night by the watchmen' s cry, ' ' Two o' clock 
and all is well, Lord Cornwallis is taken." 
A shout of exulting joy burst from Maine to 
Georgia. Congress marched in X3rocession 
to Church to offer thanks to God, and a day 
of national thanksgiving was appointed. On 
the 3rd of November, 1783, the "Army of 
the United States " was disbanded. George 
Washington bade an affectionate farewell to 
his soldiers and returned to Mount Yernon 
a private citizen of the country, whose liber- 
ties he had secured. 

A humiliated King was compelled to stand 
in the House of Lords and acknowledge the 
Independence of the "United States of 
America." Lord North is said to have re- 
ceived the news of the British surrender ' ' as 
a cannon ball in his breast," 



130 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Voltaire says, " Put together all tlie cru- 
elties of centuries, and tliey will not equal 
the atrocities of a single campaign." A 
stubborn King and a short-sighted minister 
had sacrificed hundreds of millions of prop- 
erty, and one hundred thousand human 
lives; besides the wreck and ruin to hun- 
dreds of thousands more in health and hap- 
piness. In return for this Great Britain had 
lost her fairest ]3ossession. — The United 
States, had won Political Independence and 
was a new Nation upon the earth. 

By the terms of the treaty signed at Ver- 
sailles, the United States extended from the 
Atlantic to the Mississii^pi and from the St. 
Lawrence and Great Lakes to Florida. This 
territory was returned to Spain, which also 
held the territory west of the Mississippi 
river ceded to her by France in 1762. Ex- 
cept in the inadequate ' ' Articles of Confed- 
eration ' ' there was no general government. 

Never had this country been in greater 
peril than in those first hours of its exist- 
ence. An infant Republic had been cast out 
upon the shores of time, naked, helpless, ex- 
hausted, unprotected by a form of govern- 
ment, and unprovided with any of the things 
needed for its continued existence, A single 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 131 

mistake might be fatal. The necessity for 
union being removed, antagonisms and antip- 
athies revived. Each of the thirteen States 
began jealously to guard its own individual 
rights, and sovereignty. Washington said: 
"We were one nation yesterday, and are 
thirteen to-day. ' ' Who should bear the bur- 
den of the unpaid soldiery, and how should 
the money be raised, and the sort of union 
which might be devised to beneiit, and not 
oppress; these were problems pressing for 
immediate solution. AVhether it be true or 
not, that Washington "thrice refused the 
Kingly Crown," he certainly had too much 
nobility to barter away the very freedom for 
which he had witnessed such sacrifices. 

In 1787 Congress convened to decide upon 
a form of government. The British Consti- 
tution was made by circumstances, through 
a course of centuries. For the first time in 
the history of the World, a peojjle tlirough 
their representatives, were to create a form 
of Government for themselves. Not alone 
must the garment fit now, — but it must be 
capable of indefinite expansion to be worn 
in an unknown future. It called for not 
only wisdom, but prescience. It was a re- 
markable group of men over which Wash- 



132 HISTORY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 

ington presided in that Congress. But tliel-e 
must have been a higher wisdom than theirs 
guiding their counsels. The "Constitu- 
tion" adopted after discussion has been pro- 
nounced by Gladstone "The most wonder- 
ful work ever struck olf at a given time by 
the brain and purpose of man." Washing- 
ton wrote of it: "It is a little short of a 
miracle. "^ "^ "^ It is provided with more 
checks and barriers against tyranny, than 
any Government hitherto instituted among 
mortals." 

There were two opposing currents of sen- 
timent in the Convention. One desired an 
indivisible Republic. The other wished to 
preserve the Sovereignty of the States, 
uniting them only for commerce and special 
I)urposes. In other words one party desired 
a union^ and the other a league. These 
extreme views were harmonized and a union 
created, so firm and yet so flexible, that 
it has withstood shocks and strain of which 
its creators never dreamed, and has easily 
embraced a growth which their wildest 
imaginings had never contemplated. 

By the plan finally adopted, two things 
were accomplished, which had seemed im- 
possibilities, A union was effected, perfect- 



HISTORY OF THE U:t^lTED STATES. 133 

ly firm and binding, wMch yet left each 
State in absolute control of its own affairs ; 
and a system of representation was devised 
whicli, while it did no injustice to the larger 
States, still gave even to Rhode Island and 
Delaware, equal dignity and importance 
with Virginia and New York. 

Each State had sovereign control of its 
local affairs, but to the Federal Government 
was committed the care of such matters as 
concerned the nation as a whole. The coin- 
age, postal service. Army and Navy, de- 
fenses and power of making war or alliances 
with foreign powers, belonged exclusively 
to the General Government. 

The Government was divided into three 
departments ; Legislative, Executive, 
and Judiciary. 

The Legislative or law-making power 
was vested in a Congress consisting of a 
Senate and a House of Representatives. 
Each State was entitled to two Senators, 
appointed by its own legislature, and a 
number of representatives in proportion to 
its population. These legislators were elect- 
ed by the voters of the State. 

The Executive power was intrusted to a 
President, chosen by electors from all the 



134 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

States, for a term of four years. To liim 
was awarded tlie appointing of Ambassa- 
dors, Consuls, Judges of the Sui3reme Court, 
and his own Cabinet, — subject to the ap- 
proval of the Senate. 

The Judicial power was bestowed upon a 
Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as 
Congress might create. 

Each of these branches was entirely dis- 
tinct from the other, and competent in itself, 
but all were under one supreme authority, 
— the authority of the Constitution. 

The British Constitution must be sought 
in thousands of statutes and decisions, 
made in the course of hundreds of years. 
The Constitution of the United States may 
be read in twenty minutes ; — but that bit 
of paper has been strong enough to hold 
a nation together for over a century, and 
although strained and bent by fierce storms 
of ];)assion, it has remained the supreme 
law of the land to which Presidents, legis- 
lators, and judiciary must bow. It is the 
will of a sovereign people. Created^ by the 
people, it can only be changed by the 
peox)le ; and the methods x)rovided by it for 
effecting such changes, are so hedged with 
difficulties, that except in the greatest 



HISTORY OF THE UJ^^ITED STATES. 135 

emergency its permanence is assured. Its 
framers provided for subsequent changes 
by allowing amendments. But these must 
have the consent of tioo-tliirds of Congress^ 
and of a majority of three- fourths of the 
States. 

The Constitution was submitted to the 
States, and after discussion, more or less 
heated, was finally accepted by one after 
another. 

In 1789, the first general election was 
held. The electors from the various States 
met, and George Washington was, without 
one dissenting voice, chosen first President 
of the United States, with John Adams as 
Vice-President. The journey to New York 
was a triumphal progress. Floral arches 
and shouts of welcome greeted him at every 
place by the way. Bands of music playing 
the ' ' President' s March ' ' (Hail Columbia) 
com.posed for the occasion. His path was 
flower-strewn by fair maidens clad in white, 
and Valley Forge must have seemed like a 
terrible and half -remembered dream. Upon 
the balcony of the Old Federal Hall in 
Wall Street, New York, the oath of office 
was administered by Chancellor Livingston. 

Congress had chosen Philadelphia for the 



13 C HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

seat of Government for ten years ; after 
which time, it was to be removed to a tract 
of land ten miles square upon the Potomac, 
ceded by Maryland and Virginia for that 
purpose, called the District of Columbia. 
A city was laid out in this wilderness, its 
ambitious and picturesque design in daring 
contrast with its surroundings at that time. 
Happily the plan of Washington City, 
drawn by the young French engineer, was 
as capable of indefinite expansion as was 
the Government of the United States. 

Thirteen broad avenues radiating from 
green centres were named after the original 
States. On paper they were charming ; but 
in reality straggled off into woods and im- 
penetrable thickets. Now, in that unique 
and beautiful city there is an archipelago of 
green islets, from which stretch a legion of 
broad avenues, vainly striving to keep pace 
with the growing number of Commonwealths 
whose names they bear. 

Three executive departments had been 
created by Congress ; the Department of 
Foreign Affairs (now State), of War and of 
Treasury. The heads of these departments 
Avere called Secretaries, and they with the 
Attorney General constituted the Cabinet. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 137 

Washington' s Cabinet consisted of Thomas 
Jefferson, Secretary of State, Alexander 
Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, Henry 
Knox, Secretary of War, and Edward Ran- 
dolph, Attorney General. John Jay was 
appointed Chief Justice of the United States. 



CHAPTER XYI. 

The matter of first and chief importance 
was to devise measures for ]3aying the Na- 
tion' s debt and for creating a revenue. The 
Continental paper issued in the time of such 
distress, had been to a large extent, sold by 
starving veterans for sums absurdly below 
its face value, and was now held by unscrup- 
ulous speculators who were eagerly hoping 
for its redemption. Under these circum- 
stances there was a strong sentiment against 
assuming this burden at once, in addition to 
the other and more urgent debt which must 
be paid out of absolute penury. It was a 
severe test of public honor, and we tremble 
to think of the injury which might have 
been inflicted upon the credit of the country 
by this, its first act. But the new Nation 
was not to begin its existence by breaking 
promises. Congress decided that every dol- 
lar of Continental money must be redeemed 
at its full value. A Mint (1792) and a JSTa- 



HISTORY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 139 

tional Bank (1791) were established at Phil- 
adelphia, and in order to create a revenue, 
taxes were imposed upon foreign goods and 
distilled liquors. 

It is to Alexander Hamilton that the coun- 
try is indebted for the creation of a sound 
financial fabric at that critical time. Daniel 
Webster said of him: "He smote the dry 
rock of National resources and streams of 
revenue burst forth. He touched the dead 
corpse of public credit, and it sprung upon 
its feet." 

Confidence in the stability and integrity 
of the Grovernment was a foundation for the 
unlocked for prosperity which immediately 
sprung into life and verdure over the finan- 
cial ruin left by the war. One benefit had 
been wrought by those eight years of isola- 
tion and i3rivation. Compelled to supply 
their own needs, skill and invention were 
stimulated and the people everywhere had 
developed small industries. These under 
the new conditions grew and expanded, cre- 
ating at once a modest prosperity. 

In 1791, Vermont struggled out of the 
grasp of New Hampshire and New York, 
both of which States claimed her, and with 
Kentucky, was admitted to Statehood. The 



140 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

relations witli Great Britain were not yet 
amicable. She still lield Niagara, Detroit, 
Mackinac and other Northern posts, contra- 
ry to treaty arrangements. She claimed to 
have her own grievances in the non-payment 
of debts contracted before the war, and had 
not yet accepted the bitterness of defeat 
sufficiently to send an Ambassador to the 
New Republic. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The first Cabinet unlike any that have ex- 
isted since, was divided in sentiment con- 
cerning the policy of America. A fierce 
storm of human joassion was raging in France. 
Like our own Revolution, this was in the be- 
ginning a protest against taxation without 
representation. La Fayette one of its lead- 
ing spirits had imbibed his ideas of popular 
Government from this hemisphere. He it 
was who first urged upon Louis XVI the 
convoking of the States General. This sum- 
moning the people for conference was a vir- 
tual surrender of the right to tax them 
without their consent. It had not been done 
for a century and a half, and was resorted to 
by the wretched Louis only when all else 
had failed, and as a desperate measure, in 
hope of restoring tranquillity. Such was the 
Revolution in its incipiency. Could any 
American fail to sympathize with such a 
cause, when too that cause was in France? 



142 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

La Fayette with confident entliusiasm sent 
the key of the Bastile to Washington, and 
the precious relic was reverently enclosed in 
a glass case at Monnt Yernon. 

But there were terrible energies slumber- 
ing in the popular will in F'rance. The 
swollen current became too swift and awful 
to hear the restraining voice of leaders. 
The King was swept into the abyss, then the 
Queen, and an indiscriminate slaughter dis- 
graced the very name of freedom. 

While this tragedy was enacting in Paris, 
all France was in the throes of a Revolution, 
casting off the old time encrusted tyrannies. 
It was from seed wafted across the Atlantic 
from that vigorous young Republican tree 
in America that this vicious growth had 
come! A Republic in Europe would be 
a menace to Kings. Austria and Prussia 
resolved to crush it in its beginnings and 
marched upon France, aided soon by Eng- 
land. It was a struggle for the principle of 
freedom in the very land which gave us 
ours. To whom should the country of La 
Fayette and of Rochambeau look for sym- 
pathy in such a cause, if not to America? 

At this very crisis John Jay was sent on 
a peaceful errand to London to try and ad- 



HISTORY or THE UNITED STATES. H3 

just tlie causes of irritation Avliicli iireventecl 
the establislimeiit oi' cordial relations be- 
tween America and Great Britain. Citizen 
Genet, the Minister from France to this 
country, taking it for granted that America 
would rush to the rescue of her rescuer, was 
most imi3ropeiiy engaged in recruiting in 
South Carolina for the French cause and fit- 
ting out x^rivateers to capture British ves- 
sels. His recall was immediately requested 
by the President. 

In offering the olive branch to England, 
and refusing at the same time to aid the 
French cause, Washington outraged two of 
the most powerful sentiments of the coun- 
try; hatred of England, and love of France. 
The one act was "unpatriotic," the other the 
' ' basest ingratitude. ' ' One patriot said ' ' We 
have been guilty of idolatry, and punishment 
is pursuing us. It is high time we should 
have no other Gods ^save the One God." 
The cabinet and the nation were torn with 
fierce dissensions which resulted in the birth 
of two political parties. 

The Federalist party upheld the treaty, 
and the President, and was led by Hamilton 
and Adams. The Republican party opposed 
to the treaty and the Administration, was 



144 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

under the leadersliip of Jefferson, Madison, 
and Monroe. Other questions of policy 
clustered about the original cause of dis- 
pute which became a fierce war between two 
oi)posing principles, — the princij)le of cen- 
tralization and of indimdualism. Hamil- 
ton's policy was to increase the x)ower at 
the centre, and Jefferson's to reduce it to 
the minimum and permit the freest possible 
expression to the voice of the people. 
Hamilton believed there was danger in the 
popular will, and that safety lay only in 
placing checks and safeguards, to restrain 
it. Jefferson believed the people were to be 
trusted, and that our liberties were safer 
with them than in the hands of the privi- 
leged few. The extreme of either of these 
conflicting principles, would have been ruin. 
Long after France and England had faded 
out of the dispute, the differences repre- 
sented by these two men, rent the country 
with the bitterest war of partisanship) it has 
ever known; the one party calling Jeffer- 
son's the party of anarchy and the other 
Hamilton's the party of Monarchical sym- 
]3athies and tyranny. Jefferson was to the 
Federalists a sympathizer with Marat, 
Eobespierre, and the guillotine; a monster 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 145 

wlio would iDut unrestricted power into the 
hands of the rabble. Hamilton to the Re- 
publicans was the aristocrat who would re- 
enslave them in a Monarchy. 

Tliere can be no doubt that Washington's 
calmly maintaining neutrality at that time, 
was the highest statesmanship. But, it is 
also true that there was manifested a dan- 
gerous reaction toward tlie very sliackles 
which had just by superhuman effort, been 
broken. The hereditary principle, — and a 
landed and privileged aristocracy — were ad- 
vocated in learned pamphlets by Adams. 
Hamilton openly declared that a limited 
Monarchy was the best form of Government, 
aiid^ the one we must finally adopt. A sort 
of regal state invested the President' s offi ce, 
and surrounded his person with some of the 
dignity which doth hedge a king. 

Jefferson and Hamilton represented two 
ever present forces. The one which tends to 
individualism, and the other which strives 
to make the individual atom subject to the 
whole. Both forces are essential. One is 
life, and the other is order — and only in 
their perfect balance is there safety. It is 
the eternal battle between the centripetal 
and centrifugal in nature. The dominance 



146 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

of tlie former tends to permanence and 
solidity and of tlie latter to a career brill- 
iant, but brief. Chinese civilization is tlie 
ultimate type of the one, and Greek civili- 
zation of the other. The ideal, is a blending 
of the two. 

Besides the war of opinions, there were 
during Washington's two administrations, 
a campaign against the Indians in the Wild- 
derness of Ohio ; a Rebellion against the 
taxing of whiskey in Pennsylvania, a hostile 
movement against Algiers, which opened 
the Mediterranean to American vessels ; a 
treaty with Spain, by which the free navi- 
gation of the lower Mississippi through her 
territory was secured, — and the State of 
Tennessee was admitted to the Union 
(1796\ 

An event bearing more directly upon the 
future of America than any of these was, 
the invention of the Cotton Grin in 1793 by 
Eli Whitney. While this agency for es- 
tablishing the dominion of cotton, and slave 
labor, was coining into existence, the first 
protest against slavery was being made in 
Congress by a society of Quakers, and a long 
fought battle had commenced. 

Firmly refusing to accept a third term, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 1-17 

Washington in 1797 retired to private life, 
the most venerated, and the most abused, — 
of the Presidents who have occupied the 
chair. 

For the first time there were two opposing 
candidates for the Presidency. John Adams 
was elected by a majority of two electoral 
votes over Jefferson. 

In retaliation for our having refused aid 
to France, the relations with that country 
had assumed a very serious aspect. The 
American flag was insulted, vessels cap- 
tured, and our envoys Avere refused an 
audience by the Directory. A war between 
the late allies seemed imminent, when Na- 
I)oleon became First Consul, and hostilities 
were averted. 

Party feeling was augmented by the 
course pursued by the Adams Administra- 
tion. Rej)ublicans who had expected a 
tyrannical usurpation of power, were not 
disappointed. "The Alien, and Sedition 
laws," were passed. Under the former the 
President could exjDel from the country any 
foreigner he deemed injurious to the United 
States, and under the latter, any one speak- 
ing injuriously of Congress or the President 
could be fined or imprisoned. 



148 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The next Presidential election was a pro- 
test against this nsurx3ation. Thomas Jef- 
ferson succeeded John Adams in 1801 — with 
Aaron Burr as Vice-President. 



CHAPTER Xyill. 

George Washington passed away with 
his century. He was stricken suddenly 
with an affection of the windpipe, which 
terminated fatally after only a few hours of 
suffering, December 14, 1799. His remains 
were placed in the Mausoleum on his own 
grounds at Mount Yernon, which has for 
one hundred years been a Mecca for his 
countrymen. As the years pass the lustre 
of his name grows not dimmer, but brighter, 
and the lines of his form more heroic. In a 
character so symmetrical, distance was need- 
ed to realize its grandeur. The century 
which was closing with his life had brought' 
nothing more pregnant with great results — 
than the career of George Washington. 

It was a period like the one through which 
we are now passing, full of reminiscence and 
ftn de siecle sentiment. As we are looking 



150 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

into the Twentieth Century, so they were 
X)eering with strange wonder into that new 
Nineteenth Century they were about to enter. 
What Avould it bring? It was impossible 
that it should be so fraught with wonders as 
had been the Eighteenth, which had created 
a Nation out of disconnected fragments, — 
had captured the thunderbolts of Heaven, — 
and imprisoned steam for the uses of man ! 
Rivalling this achievement of Watts' , Ark- 
wright had created a machine which super- 
seded the work of human hands in weaving, 
and its wood and iron fingers were impelled 
by steam instead of human energy ! Could 
any marvel in the Nineteenth Century exceed 
that? 

The Cotton Gin had so facilitated the pro- 
duction of cotton that acres might be X3lanted 
where there was only one before, and the 
fleecy product requiring less labor than here- 
tofore — could be shipped to England for her 
looms and spindles. This meant prosperity; 
'a sure market for America's most abundant 
harvest. More forests must be subdued and 
converted into more acres of cotton field. 

But shall we receive good and not evil at 
the hand of the Lord? Fate was weaving 
two threads from these mechanical devices, 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 151 

and tliis industrial growth ; threads which 
woukl terribly complicate the tangled web 
of human existence in two nations. The 
factory system in England, and slave labor 
in America, were the unsiglitly children of 
the steam engine, the loom and the cotton 
gin. 

Jefferson's inauguration was at Wash- 
ington, the new capital of the nation, and 
the White House was exchanged for Monti- 
cello. 

The intense democratic sympathies of 
Jefferson were the more remarkable because 
of his aristocratic birth, and the wealth of 
gifts which had made him shine in the most 
distinguished European capitals. True to 
his ideals, he rode to his inauguration with- 
out state or attendants, tied his horse to the 
fence and entered the capitol to take his 
oath of office as if he were the humblest 
man in the land. There is no doubt that 
the simplicity so studiously and consist- 
ently observed by him, did stem the tide of 
aristocratic usage which threatened at one 
time to lead Republican America far afield. 
And as the long continued Whig rule in 
England, established by long habit, the 
principle of freedom and the supremacy of 



152 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

Parliament, so six successive administra- 
tions of the party of Jefferson, established 
in America a corresponding sentiment which 
extinguished monarchial and aristocratic 
tendencies. 

Some of Jefferson's theories, however, 
were modified by experience. He was com- 
jjelled to admit that the Executive power 
must be firmly exercised if it would exist 
at all. In the purchase of Louisiana from 
Napoleon (1803), he believed he transcended 
the power of the Executive, but it was a 
concession of theory wisely made when he 
saw the benefit which must accrue from 
having full possession of the Mississii:)i3i 
River. This territory which had been ceded 
to Spain in 1762, was retroceded to France 
in 1800 by the treaty of Madrid. The sum 
of $15,000,000 was paid by America to France 
for over one million square miles. 

In 1801 the United States brought a 
claim of $20,000,000 against France for 
damages to its shipping in the recent war 
between that country and Gfreat Britain. 
Naj)oleon met this with a counter-claim 
very much greater in amount, for damages 
from the failure of the United States to 
keep their treaty obligations with France. 



HISTORY OF THE U>" ITED STATES. 153 

This was adjusted at last by a mutual sur- 
render of claims and tlie United States 
assumed tlie obligations of France to tlie 
amount of $15,000,000 for the indemnifica- 
tion of its citizens. The French Spoliation 
Claims then took a rest of eighty-four 
years ! — during which generations came and 
went, and time's effacing fingers were busy 
with records and even memories of the past. 
In 1885 when the great-great-grandchildren 
of the original claimants were at last au- 
thorized to have the amount and validity of 
their claims passed upon by a court sitting 
for that purpose, it was a difficult matter to 
prove that they were not asking to be in- 
demnified for phantom ships loaded with 
phantom cargoes. 

The Barbary States in N'orth Africa had 
an uncomfortable practice of capturing ves- 
sels from Christian nations and holding the 
crews until a ransom was paid. This high- 
handed piracy was recognized by European 
nations by the act of paying an annual 
tribute to the Bashaw of Trij)oli, in order to 
secure exemption from these attacks. The 
United States in its first years purchased 
the security of its vessels in the same abject 
fashion. Almost the first act of Jefferson's 



154 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Administration, was the sending of a fleet 
instead of tlie annual tribute. Tripoli was 
bombarded, and tlie Basliaw so frightened, 
that he was glad to make peace on our 
terms. 

France and England were as usual at war, 
and America as usual suffered from the con- 
flict. 

England declared all vessels trading with 
France to be liable to confiscation; and Na- 
poleon in retaliation, issued the Berlin De- 
cree which prohibited the introduction of 
English goods into any port of Europe by 
neutral nations, and following this the Mi- 
lan Decree, which declared that all vessels 
violating the Berlin Decree or submitting to 
search by Great Britain, should be confisca- 
ted. 

Each nation was in high-handed fashion 
using America to punish the other. But 
more odious still was the "Right of Search " 
asserted by Great Britain. By this she 
claimed the right of stopping American ves- 
sels on the high seas, to search for seamen 
of English birth; and when such right was 
maintained at the cannon's mouth, by firing 
into fleeing ships, Jefferson ordered all 
British vessels of war to leave the waters of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 155 

the United States, and intercourse with either 
England or France was forbidden by Con- 
gress, by what was known as the Embargo 
Act. (When the war was concluded France 
had captured 558 American vessels, England 
917, and that country had also imx)ressed 
10,000 seamen in pursuance of the policy de- 
clared above.) 

Such offensive conduct in Great Britain 
gave increased strength to the Republican 
l^arty, which was born of anti-British senti- 
ment. In 1805 Jefferson was re-elected with 
George Clinton as Vice President, and after 
the conclusion of his second term, James 
Madison a Republican in entire sympathy 
with his great predecessor, was elected as 
his successor, with Elbridge Gerry Yice- 
President. 

The story of Aaron Burr is a sad one. He 
was one of the most captivating and brilliant 
men of this time. He and Alexander Ham- 
ilton were bitter rivals and political enemies. 
While he Avas Vice-President, in the heat of 
passion. Burr challenged Hamilton to light 
a duel. A few hours later the Elysian Fields 
at Hoboken were stained with Hamilton's 
life blood. Burr fled from the outburst of 
horror and grief. He was lost to sight in the 



156 HISTORY OF THE UN^ITED STATES. 

Western Wilderness for a time, then there 
came a rumor that he was plotting to set np 
a separate Confederacy west of the Alleghe- 
nies. He was imprisoned and tried. The 
charge of treason was* never substantiated, 
but he lived and died an outcast. 

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who 
had been co-workers and friends in creating 
the union, were alienated by the bitterest 
political strife. The tournaments between 
Federalists and Re]3ublicans were really 
fought out in the persons of these two men. 
It was a strange circumstance that they both 
died on the same day in 182G, and that day 
was July the Fourtli^ and tlie semi-centen- 
nial of our Independence. They lived long 
enough to be assured of the solidity and 
strength of the structure they had planned, 
and to see the life of the people quickened 
by new and wonderful inventions, and thriv- 
ing industries, creating prosperity every- 
where. Woolen mills in New York (1809); 
rolling mills in Pittsburg (1813); and ma- 
chines superseding handwork in the making 
of clocks in Connecticut (1807). The Eigh- 
teenth Century had not exhausted the in- 
ventive genius of man. 

During Jefferson's second Administra- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 157 

tion, people were laughing and jeering at 
Robert Fulton who exx3ected to x^erform a 
miracle. The first exiDeriment of his boat 
X)ropelled by steam, was heralded in advance 
by the news^mpers as "The Failure of Ful- 
ton the Fanatic,' ' which was more allitera- 
tive than i)roplietic. Strange to say this 
memorable voyage, like that of Columbus 
was also undertaken on Friday. On August 
4tli, 1807, the only steamboat in the world 
moved uj) past the Palisades and the High- 
lands, on the bosom of the same stream 
where just two hundred years before, Henry 
Hudson was seeking for a passage to India, 
on the ''Half-Moon;"— and in 1820, the 
hearts of Jefferson and Adams were alike 
thrilled, by the voyage of the first steam- 
ship, "Savannah," across the Atlantic Ocean. 
But before this crowning marvel much was 
to happen. There was a great Western 
Wilderness to be subdued, and a continent 
to be prepared for a growing nation to 
occupy. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

A Map of the Territory West of the Alle- 
ghenies at the close of the Revohitioiiary 
period, looks like a i3icture of geological 
strata of varying thicknesses. As one some- 
times sees ice and snow lingering in shel- 
tered nooks in Angus t, so the names Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North and 
South Carolina and Georgia lingered across 
these divisions until their gradual cession 
to the United States by the States named. 

As infancy is a necessary preparation for 
maturity, so territorial existence is the first 
step towards Statehood. But until this 
Statehood is attained the infant territory is 
wholly under the authority of the Federal 
Government. The course of development in 
America, was out of the vast and thinly oc- 
cupied spaces in the west first to create 
large territories, then to cut these down 
from time to time into smaller areas or ter- 
ritories, which when sufficiently developed 
were admitted as States. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 159 

In 1800 tlie territory originally belonging 
to the Carolinas embraced between tlie 
Cliattalioocliie river and the Mississix3pi, was 
separated from Georgia under the name of 
the Mississii^pi Territory. It was not until 
the year 1817 that this was cut in two by a 
line drawn from the Tennessee river to the 
Gulf, creating the Territory of Alabama, 
lying between Mississippi and the State of 
Georgia. 

In the year 1787, Virginia ceded to the 
United States all the territory north-west of 
this river. This was known as the _ Nortli- 
west Territory. 

The subdivision of this immense tract 
commenced in 1800 A line was drawn from 
the mouth of the Kentucky river due north 
as far as Canada, and the portion on the 
west of the line w^as known as Indiana Ter- 
ritory. 

In 1802 Congress authorized the inhabi- 
tants of the eastern division of the North- 
west Territory to form a State and name it 
Ohio. 

In 1805 Indiana Territory was subdivided 
by a line drawn east from the southern ex- 
tremity of Lake Michigan, and tlie northern 
division was called Michigan Territory. 



IGO HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

In 1809 there was anotlier sub-division on 
the line of the Wabash river extending to 
Canada, and the portion west of this line 
was called Illinois Territory. 

In 1811, the southern extremity of the 
vast tract purchased from Napoleon was 
admitted to the Union, and the name Louisi- 
ana bestowed ui)on it. 

We are apt to think of the land acquired 
by purchase from France as the portion now 
knoAvn by the name of Louisiana. The 
truth is however that the territory trans- 
ferred at that time for $15,000,000 was larger 
than all before possessed by the United 
States. Twelve large States and Territories 
(most of them greatly exceeding the largest 
of the eastern States in size) were carved out 
of the French Province of Louisiana; viz.: 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minne- 
sota, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana, 
Dakota, Wyoming, and Indian Territory. 

Napoleon realized a great prospective 
value in this empire, and he bestowed it 
upon us, not because he loved America, but 
because he hated England. He said "I 
have given England a rival that will humble 
her pride." 

As early as 1790, and 1791, Kentucky and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. IGl 

Tennessee had been admitted to Statehood. 
The former was ceded by Virginia and tlie 
latter by North Carolina to the United 
States. The occupying of these two States 
was part of a great mov ement westward. It 
was a sluggish wave which crej^t gradually 
toward the Mississii^pi. 

The settlers would embark from Pittsburg 
or Wheeling, or from the Allegheny River 
in New York State, upon great Hat-bottomed 
boats, or rafts put roughly together. On 
these with their household stuff, they floated 
down stream until they reached the desired 
point, then broke up the raft and construc- 
ted cabins for shelter with the lumber. 
The people in this interior country Avere shut 
out from the world. They lived in a rude 
primitive fashion, supplying their own needs 
in the roughest way. Was a cradle needed 
for the baby, a log hollowed out, and filled 
with moss, served well enough for the infant 
settler. Did mama need a cup of tea, an in- 
fusion of sassafras root sufficed. The one 
badge of civilization never for a moment lost 
sight of was the rifle. That might be need- 
ed at any moment to protect mothers and 
children from the tomahawk and scalj)ing 
knife. 



1G2 HISTOItY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Their produce had to go in one direction, 
— the way of the stream. — It was floated on 
rafts hundreds of miles down the Ohio, and 
thence down the Mississippi to New Orleans, 
requiring four months for the transit, and 
many more for the return against the river 
current. The result of this was, that the 
people had no dealings whatever with the At- 
lantic States. Their face was set toward New 
Orleans which was their commercial goal. 
They were nourished by the Mississii^pi Val- 
ley, and were fast growing into a different 
type of civilization. They felt small alle- 
giance to the Union, and cared little for the 
Constitution, excei)t as they might need it 
to x^rotect them from the Indians. 

It Avas this great region, of settlers, hun- 
ters, and restless adventurers, and the terri- 
tory ceded by the French beyond, which was 
the field of Aaron Burr's intriguing and 
treasonable ambition. 

His daring imagination saw another em- 
pire in the west, where he might play the 
role of an Alexander or a Napoleon. 

In 1808, just after James Madison had 
succeeded to the Presidency the Indians in 
the northwest, under the leadership of 
Tecumseh, a Shawnee Chief, formed a con- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 163 

federacy. It was composed of the various 
interior tribes and was intended by a great 
combined movement to drive the white race 
back over the Ohio river. They did not 
understand the power of an advancing civili- 
zation, nor the futility of trying to keep 
back the tides with a broom. 

General William Henry Harrison who 
had been api)ointed Governor of the new 
territory of Indiana was placed in command 
of the troops, and marched with 900 men to 
the Indian encamj^ment at Tij^pecanoe. 
Tecumseh was in the south, directing other 
movements in the campaign, and his brother 
"the Prophet," who spake and acted by in- 
spiration, was in charge. He was inspired 
at this time to talk of peace and submission, 
and to request a parley the next morning. 
This was granted and the army went into 
camp for the night in a beautiful grove ; 
at day-break they found the long grass was 
alive with crouching, creeping savages. 
There was a war whoop, and a rush uj^on 
the camp. The soldiers led by Harrison 
made a furious charge and the Indians were 
driven like deer before them. The rout was 
so complete that the war ui)on white civili- 
zation suddenly ceased. 



164 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

There was every reason to believe that 
this hostile movement of the red men was 
incited by the British, who hovered about 
the frontier while their ships were harass- 
ing our merchant marine, and searching for 
British born seamen who were sailing under 
the American flag. 

The country was aroused. The right of 
search, so insolently insisted upon, must be 
resisted at whatever cost, and our commerce 
on the seas must be unmolested. The 
Federalists urged peaceful measures, but if 
a war must be declared, it should be against 
France as well as England, on account of 
depredations committed by her as outra- 
geous as those of Great Britain. *' Weak as 
we are" said Henry Clay of Kentucky "we 
can fight England and France both if neces- 
sary." In congress and in the country at 
large a war of opinion raged ; the name of 
England being a red flag to exasperated 
Republicans, and that of France, to the 
Federalists. "In your zeal to serve your 
French Master" shouted the Federalist, 
"you would embroil us in a fratricidal 
strife with people of our own blood." "In 
your cringing devotion to your English Mas- 
ters," retorted the Republican "you would 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 165 



have ns make war upon the nation to which 
we owe our very existence." 
• The Republicans were in the majority, 
and their counsels prevailed. June 19th, 
1812, a proclamation was issued declaring 
war against Great Britain. Measures were 
at once taken to increase the small regular 
army of 10,000 to 35,000 men, and there was 
a call for 100,000 militia for the defence of 
the frontier and sea-coast. The lack of 
properly trained officers led to the appoint- 
ment of a permanent board of professors at 
the West Point Military Academy, which 
had ten years before been created on a very 
small scale. 

The beginning of the conflict was disas- 
trous. Tecumseh with his braves was with 
the British. His time had come. With 
these great allies he could avenge Tippe- 
canoe, and would yet reclaim the land of 
his fathers for his people. Lying way be- 
yond hundreds of miles of imj)enetrable 
forests was Detroit, a little town of 500 in- 
habitants, chiefly French Canadians. Will- 
iam Hull, Governor of Michigan Territory 
was in command of the garrison at that 
point. He led his command over the river 
to attack the British in Canada. But, when 



166 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

news came tliat Fort Mackinac was captured 
and that a force of Indians and British were 
on their way to Detroit, he was apx)arently 
panicstricl^en and returned quickly for 
shelter, pursued by tlie British. General 
Brock planted batteries o^iposite the Fort at 
Detroit, but to the dismay of his own offi- 
cers, the Commanding Officer attem]3ted no 
defence, and the following day, entered 
ux)on negotiations for a surrender of fort, 
garrison, and territory. An event so dis- 
graceful, when victory was confidently ex- 
13ected, was received with amazement and 
indignation throughout the land. General 
Hull was court martialed and sentenced to 
be shot ; but was saved by the clemency of 
the President. 

Another disaster quickly followed this at 
the Niagara Frontier, where General Ste- 
l)hen Van Rensselaer, in another attempt 
u^Don Canada was repulsed with a heavy loss, 
and he also surrendered to the British. 

England was the acknowledged mistress 
of the seas. To defeat her there was the 
thing least expected by America, and there 
was a strange historic justice in our hum- 
bling her on the very element where Ameri- 
ca' s riglits had been violated. A series of 



HISTOEY OF THE UNITED STATES. 167 

brilliant naval victories followed these Im- 
miliating defeats on land. Porter in tlie 
frigate Essex captured tlie British slooi3 of 
war Alert. Hull on the frigate Constitution 
destroyed the frigate Guerriere off the 
coast of Massachusetts and burned her to 
the waters edge. Decatur cruising in south- 
ern waters at the same time was destroying 
the British frigate Macedonian ; and in the 
same year off the coast of Brazil, the vic- 
torious Constitution, commanded by Bain- 
bridge, captured the frigate Java. Before 
the close of the year, three hundred ]3rizes 
had been taken by American War Ships 
and by privateers, which were avenging 
X^ast wrongs by preying upon British Com- 
merce in every sea. 



CHAPTER XX. 

Early in the year 1813, the Emperor of 
Russia offered his services as a peace-maker 
between the two nations. Albert Gallatin, 
James A. Bayard and John Quincy Adams 
were sent to Russia to treat with a similar 
commission which should be appointed by 
Great Britain. But that nation refusing to 
accejDt any such mediation, they returned to 
America. 

England had her hands full in the conflict 
she was waging with Napoleon, and might 
not have undertaken this war upon a rival 
commerce, but for the Confederation of In- 
dian tribes under Tecum seh. She counted 
largely upon the revengeful foe in our rear, 
ravaging from the Great Lakes to the Gulf. 
These hapless Indians, always cruel, some- 
times treacherous, were fighting in despera- 
tion for a cause more sacred to them than 
ours to us. America had taken up the sword 
in defense of one of her rights, they for all 



HISTORY OF THE UIsTITED STATES. 169 

of theirs, and for their very existence. Boa- 
dicea in England and Hermann in Germany, 
inspiring their people by one supreme effort 
to expel the Romans, were no more patriots 
and heroes, than was Tecumseh. The heart 
must be callous indeed, which can fail to be 
touched by sight of these children of the 
forest, making a last stand against the inva- 
sion of the land of their fathers, and in 
naked helplessness destined to be driven at 
the point of the bayonet almost into the Pa- 
cific. Tribes before hostile to each other, 
sprang together with a common purpose as 
did the colonies in the Revolution, and with 
a blind fury, struck wherever they had a 
chance from Michigan to Alabama. So 
while England was engaged in ''laying- 
waste our entire seaboard ' ' as she threatened, 
the task would be made easier by a ravaging 
foe in the interior. 

General Harrison was in command of the 
army of the west. General Dearborn of the 
army of the centre, about the Niagara fron- 
tier, and General Wade Hampton with head- 
quarters at Plattsburg, was in charge of the 
army of the north. As in the revolution, the 
possession of the lakes and northern water- 
ways was the first object sought. 



170 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The British had invoked the aid of cruel 
allies. General Winchester was forced to 
surrender his command at Frenchtown near 
Detroit early in 1813. General Proctor 
promised safety to his prisoners and then 
marched away leaving them at the mercy of 
ruthless savages. Scarcely a man survived 
to tell the awful story, and all of Kentucky 
and Ohio w^ere plunged in mourning for live 
hundred of the bravest and best of their 
youth. 

Two months after this tragedy, General 
Proctor saw the hero of Tippecanoe ap- 
proaching with an inadequate force, but 
which at the War Office in Washington had 
seemed quite sufficient. The British Gener- 
al saw his opportunity. 

^'Summon all your Indians," said he to 
Tecumseh. "We will drive the Americans 
beyond the Ohio, and you shall have Michi- 
gan forever." 

Harrison intrenched his small force with- 
in Fort Meigs, which he had built the year 
before. For five days shot and shell rained 
upon them. When Proctor sent a flag sum- 
moning him to surrender he replied: "Not 
while I have the honor to command." Re- 
inforcements came and the fort was saved. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 171 

The name of James Lawrence stands liigli 
in the roll of honor. He commanded the 
frigate Chesapeake, which was challenged 
by the British flag-ship Shannon. He lost 
his shi]3 and his life, but his dying words 
were an inspiration to future victories. 
Commodore Perry's hag-shii^ in the great 
Naval battle on Lake Erie, was called the 
" Lawrence," and from its masthead floated 
the consecrated words, "Don't give up the 
shii3." 

Excepting the Naval victories, the cam- 
paign had been a dispiriting one. There 
was a strong anti-war party from the begin- 
ning. Wherever Federalist sentiment pre- 
vailed, every obstruction to the prosecution 
of the war was put in the way, Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island re- 
fused to raise militia, even for the protection 
of their own sea-board, Connecticut, yield- 
ing, however, to the iDersuasion of cannon 
at last, when New London was stormed and 
burned. 

In the absence of victories there seemed 
danger that the Presidential election would 
be a vote of censure to the war party. But 
Madison was re-elected, and entered upon a 
second term in 1813. 



172 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The Great Lakes were controlled by the 
British, who also possessed Michigan and 
threatened Ohio. Commodore Oliver H. 
Perry, only twenty-seven years old, was com- 
missioned to dispute that control. He had 
first to create his ships from the forests of 
Ohio, and then man them as he could, by 
sailors brought overland in stage coaches. 
On the lOtli of SejDtember, 1813, he captured 
the entire British fieet on Lake Erie. The 
Americans had captured single frigates and 
sloops of war, but never before, an entire 
Squadron. 

The victory was swiftly followed up by 
Harrison. He crossed into Canada and pur- 
sued the retreating enemy, whom he over- 
took at the river Thames. Nearly all of 
Proctor's command was captured. Tecum- 
seli the heroic leader of his peojjle, was 
killed, and the Indian Confederacy was for- 
ever buried in its grave. 

General Harrison wearied with long ser- 
vice, resigned his commission and left three 
young Generals, Brown, Scott and Ripley, to 
follow uj) these successes. They made a res- 
olute attack uj)on Canada toward the east. 
General W infield Scott gained a brilliant vic- 
tory at Chii)pewa (July 5, 1814) and another 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 173 

within sound of Magara Falls at Lundy's 
Lane; and when Commodore MacDonough 
annihilated the British lieet on Lake Cham- 
l^lain, at the same time that Macomb, was 
driving back an army of 12,000 veterans at 
Plattsburg, (September 11, 1814,) the British 
power in the north was broken. 

But six months earlier than this, another 
battle had been fought on a larger stage. 
Napoleon had met his Waterloo. He was 
safely at Elba, and the English had plenty 
of troojDS now with which to reinforce their 
army in America. Battle slnj)S were swarm- 
ing all along the Atlantic Coast, so that the 
lamps in the light-houses were extinguished 
as being of use only to the enemy. Towns 
were captured all the way from Maine to the 
Chesapeake. Admiral Cockburn with his 
fleet was hovering about the coast of the Car- 
olinas, Maryland, Virginia and the Chesa- 
peake more like a pirate and a plunderer than 
an honorable warrior. The peoj)le seem to 
have been x^aralyzed by the audacity of his 
marauding approach to the Capital City of 
the Nation, and to have offered little or no 
resistance. 

It was an easy matter for Major Koss in 
August, 1814, to land in Maryland with 5,000 



174 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

men and march into Washington; then to 
set the torch to the Capitol, White House, 
all the public and most of the private build- 
ings. The smouldering embers of the Con- 
gressional Library, the blackened walls of the 
Capitol and White House, were the strong- 
est argument yet used to destroy opposition 
to the war. Massachusetts, and other New 
England States forgot they had gone almost 
to the verge of rebellion in their resistance 
to war measures, and laid the charge of in- 
capacity and apathy u^Don the Government 
in its prosecution. 

There was ringing of bells and rejoicing 
in London when the news arrived of the 
burning of Washington, The London Times 
said "That ill-organized association (the 
American E,ex)ublic) is on the eve of disso- 
lution, and the world is speedily to be de- 
livered of the mischievous example of a 
government founded on democratic rebel- 
lion." Admiral Cockburn in America, 
considered a barbarian and a marauder, was 
in England a hero ^' sans peur et sans 
reproche.^^ The burning of the Capital was 
a "si3lendid achievement." 

Far reaching was the effect of this humili- 
ation. A hostility toward England was 



HISTOKY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 175 

aroused, and a sense of injury created, 
which years could not efface. If the vic- 
tories at Lake Erie and Plattsburg had 
shaken the ]3arty in opposition to the war, 
the burning of the Ca^^ital of the nation al- 
most swept it out of existence. 

The man who was to avenge these injuries 
had been in training many months in Ala- 
bama, wliere by address and courage he had 
broken the power of the Creeks, a remnant 
of Tecumseh ' s Confederacy. Learning tliat 
a British Squadron was on its way to New 
Orleans, Andrew Jackson, (a Tennessee 
frontiersman) was placed in charge of its 
defense. The result shows how well he per- 
formed the duty assigned him. On the 8th 
of January, he received the attack of 12,000 
British trooj^s, fresh from Napoleonic wars. 
So thorough had been the General's prepara- 
tion, that after the victory, two thousand, 
six hundred British soldiers lay dead in the 
trenches before the City, and the American 
loss was, — seven men killed, and six 
wounded ! 

Had there been telegraphic cables in those 
days, this slaughter might have been sj^ared. 
A treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent 
two weeks before the Battle of New Orleans. 



176 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

So ended the war of 1812. An infant na- 
tion had been torn and rent by the conflict, 
its commerce annihilated, its industries para- 
lyzed, its treasury emptied, a national debt 
of 127 million dollars created, and a lack of 
unanimity developed which made the name 
of "United States" seem a mockery. In 
comi)ensation for this the Republic had es- 
tablished a solidity of reputation abroad 
which years of commercial and industrial 
prosperity could not have attained. Europe 
realized that beyond the Atlantic was a 
people Avhose rights could not be safely 
tramx^led upon. 

The Federalist party was so broken by the 
events of the last four years that there was 
small opiDosition to the Republican candi- 
date in 1816. James Monroe was almost 
unanimously elected President and Daniel 
B. Tomi3kins Vice-President. 

In that same year Indiana became the 
Nineteenth State in the Union. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

After the accession of President Monroe, 
party strife, upon the old lines, subsided, 
and in an "era of good feeling," all united 
to build up the jjrosperity which had been 
shattered by the war, and to heal the ugly 
scars it had left. 

One utterance in the President's inaugural 
address is significant, and contains the germ 
of the policy of " Protection," which was to 
be one of the great issues of the future. He 
says "Our manufactures will reqaire the 
systematic and fostering care of the gov- 
ernment." 

In the second year of this administration, 
Florida was ceded to the United States by 
Spain for the sum of 5,000,000 dollars. Five 
new States were admitted in live successive 
years. Mississippi (1817); Illinois (1818); 
Alabama (1819); Maine (1820); and Missouri 
(1821). 

Missouri was a portion of the French pur- 



178 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

chase, and was organized as a territory in 
1812. The admission of this State was at- 
tended by a storm of conliicting opinions 
upon a subject which was to be the burning 
one for forty years. 

Slavery had for a long time ceased to exist 
at the north. When the Northwest Terri- 
tory was organized in 1787, the first step 
was taken toward limiting its extension. 
Congress by a unanimous vote iDrohibiled 
its existence in that Territory. In 1807 the 
imx3ortation of slaves was prohibited, and 
the traffic declared to be piracy. One 
northern State after another had emanci- 
pated its slaves, until the Institution was 
confined within the borders of those States 
which were dependent upon slave labor for 
the maintenance of their industries. Mis- 
souri on account of its geographical position 
came naturally within this category. The 
northern States in Congress, however, in 
their desire to check the extension of what 
they considered an evil, insisted that Mis- 
souri should be admitted only on condition 
of its being a free State. 

The war of opinion Avas at last settled hy 
a comj)romise. It was agreed that Missouii 
should come in as a slave State, but that 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 179 

thereafter, slavery should be forever prohib- 
ited in all other Territory west of the Miss- 
issippi, and north of parallel 36^ 30'. — 
This is ^ known as the " Missouri Com- 
promise." Its ablest and most eloquent ad- 
vocate was Henry Clay of Kentucky. An- 
other event in this Administration was far 
reaching in its consequences, and largely 
occupies public attention to-day in two con- 
tinents. 

President Monroe in his Annual Message 
to Congress in 1823 uttered these words. 
''European powers must not extend their 
political systems to any portion of the 
American Continent." 

This utterance which has become famous 
under the name of the "Monroe Doctrine," 
was caused by an attempt then making by 
three allied European" powers to restore to 
Spain some of her South American Pro- 
vinces. The princix3le of " Divine Right" 
had been rudely shaken in Europe by a suc- 
cessful Republic across the sea, and by a 
desperate attempt to erect one in France. 
In 1815, there was a concerted effort to re- 
habilitate this revered principle by a syste- 
matic attack upon free Institutions in the 
germ. Russia, Austria, and Prussia, 



180 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

formed what they called a *' Holy Alliance " 
for this purpose. In 1823, the activities of 
this Sacred Alliance, were transferred to 
this hemisphere, where some forlorn South 
American States had struggled out of the 
grasp of Spain. 

This threatened action in behalf of Spain 
was viewed with displeasure by England as 
well as America, and Canning her Prime 
Minister proposed an alliance with the 
United States to resist it. But the doctrine 
of non-intervention held by President Mon- 
roe, precluded English intervention, even 
for so righteous a purpose as this; and he 
proclaimed his view in those Avords which 
have become historic. 

^' The Monroe Doctrine '' is not a principle 
of international law. It was not an au- 
thoritative utterance. It was merely the 
expression of one man's opinion, at the time 
of an impending crisis. But so firmly has 
this unwritten law become established in 
the minds of the people, that in 1896, more 
than seventy years later. Congress declared 
it to be a vital principle of American policy. 

While men's minds were thus agitated 
over matters political, they were uncon- 
scious of the undeveloped riches of their 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 181 

own land. The existence of Petroleum in 
small quantities had been known to some of 
the earliest settlers, but it was in 1820, that 
the oil springs were first discovered in Ohio. 

In Pennsylvania, the first colonists found 
a shining black stone in such abundance 
that they used it to fill in their roads ; little 
dreaming that this was the fuel of the 
future. Bryant had not then apostrophized 
''Dark Anthracite! that reddenest on my 
hearth." The very name Anthracite was 
unknown. With the coming of steam, fuel 
was to be a matter of supreme importance 
in the nation's economy. What should 
they do in that distant day, when the forests 
were laid low? They were unconsciously 
living over a supply of fuel practically in- 
exhaustible, with energy enough stored in 
its veins, to run the machinery of the 
world. 

The President and Vice-President had 
been re-elected without opposition in 1821. 
In 1825, the sixth President was inaugura- 
ted, and the tenth Administration com- 
menced. John Quincy Adams, son of the 
second President, was chosen for the great 
office, and John C. Calhoun for Vice-Presi- 
dent. 



182 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

During President Monroe's Administra- 
tion, a bill proposing to connect the Hudson 
and the great Lakes was drafted by Judge 
Jonas Piatt of New York State. As he was 
a prominent member of the Federalist par- 
ty, then in the minority, he asked his friend 
De Witt Clinton to introduce and father 
the measure, in order to secure its popular- 
ity. On October 26th, 1826, this first great 
public Avork was thrown open to the ]S"ation, 
with great ceremony. Cannon were placed 
at intervals from the Hudson River to Buf- 
falo. When the first report was heard, it was 
taken up by the next in the chain, and so 
on to the end ; the message conveyed by this 
primitive telegraph taking just twenty min- 
utes to reach Bufi'alo. 

It needed a venturesome and far-seeing 
mind to realize the importance of such an 
immense undertaking, at a time when much 
of the territory through which it would pass, 
was virgin forest, and the region beyond al- 
most a wilderness. 

This was the year in which those two 
Nestors of the Republic, Jefferson and 
Adams, passed away, just fifty years from 
the day they had signed the Declaration of 
Independence. 



HISTORY OF THE UITITED STATES. 183 

The Nation liad two distinguislied guests 
at this time, the Baron Yon Humboldt, and 
Marquis de La Fayette. Alexander Von 
Humboldt had ascended the Andes, and 
stood upon the cloud-capped peaks where 
European foot had never trod before, measur- 
ing their mighty i)roportions and sounding 
the dejoths of burning volcanoes. Out of 
this vast accession to human knowledge, he 
had just given to the world a new revelation 
of science in "Kosmos." This epoch-mak- 
ing book represented the Natural World as 
a Unit. It grasped all its diversities and 
comj)lexities as one consistent existence. 

But the presence of La Fayette stirred 
deep wells of feeling in the heart of the 
Nation. 

It was like the conclusion of a fairy tale 
when the armed knight who had rushed to 
our rescue in the Revolution, returned to 
our shores almost at the time of our semi- 
centennial (1825). 

La Fayette' s progress through the twenty- 
four States was one prolonged ovation. 
Towns were garlanded at his approach, wliite 
haired men wept and clasped him in their 
arms, and white robed maidens scattered 
flowers in his x)ath. It was a spontaneous 



184 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

outpouring of adoring gratitude from tlie 
Nation, in which the Government joined. 

La Fayette shed reverent tears at the tomb 
of Washington, laid the corner stone of Bun- 
ker Hill Monument, and was conveyed bacl^ 
to France in a National frigate, named in 
honor of his first battle the ''Brandy^ 
wine." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

As the privations during the war of the 
revolution had left a crop of small and thriv- 
ing industries in the infant States, so the 
war of 1812 and the Embargo Act, in cutting 
them off from foreign supplies, had stimu- 
lated home manufactures which were mov- 
ing with the added momentum of steam and 
machinery. 

There were many new forces at work. It 
was a period of transition. The country was 
passing from a simple to a more complex 
condition. From having been exclusively 
agricultural, it had gradually developed 
large manufacturing interests, which were 
geographically separated from the agricul- 
tural interests. Legislation favorable to 
the one was claimed to be an oppression to 
the other. Ever since President Monroe 
had urged a *' systematic fostering of our 
manufacturing interests," there had been a 
steady increase in duties on foreign goods, 



186 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

unnoticed at first, so long as it seemed for 
the sake of revenue needed to pay a large 
National debt. But as tlie idea of "Pro- 
tection" to northern industries developed, 
it was met by an angry opposition. Why 
should the Southern States pay a higher 
price for goods, in order to ^protect north- 
ern industries % 

There had been no gxeat issues to divide 
the people since the war of 1812 — but the 
era of good feeling was about to end. Two 
political parties came into existence with the 
tariff as the main issue. The old Republi- 
cans took the name of Democrats, and the 
j)arty in favor of protection and high tariff 
were called Whigs. They were the lineal 
successors of the old Republicans and Fed- 
eralists, with the same general tendencies as 
before, upon which was engrafted the new 
tariff issue, and the two parties loved each 
other no more than in the old days of Jeffer- 
son and Hamilton. 

The political storm was brewing during the 
Administration of John Quincy Adams, and 
began to manifest its hidden energies over 
the tariff bill of 1828. This policy of a high 
tariff which was known as the American 
System, had for its advocates and sponsors 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 187 

two of tlie greatest men in tlie political his- 
tory of the country, Henry Clay, then Secre- 
tary of State, and Daniel Webster. The op- 
position was led by one scarcely less distin- 
guished, — Jojin C. Calhoun of South Carolina 
at that time Vice-President of the United 
States. It must indeed have been an era of 
millennial good feeling Avhen John Quincy 
Adams and John C. Calhoun, were unequal- 
ly yoked together. 

John Quincy Adams was the most accom- 
plished scholar who had ever occupied the 
Presidential chair. He was perfectly versed 
in diplomatic usage, a linguist, a polished 
man of the world and of letters. His succes- 
sor was signally deficient in all these quali- 
ties. Andrew Jackson, who was President 
of the United States through one of its most 
critical periods, from 1829 to 1837, was a 
frontiersman at a time when rifles were more 
in demand than books. He was without 
education or early advantages. But he had 
convictions and the courage which belonged 
to them; and the Battle of New Orleans tells 
whether or not he had energy and ability in 
times of emergency, and whether he was a 
foe to be trifled with. 

He took possession of his great office with 



188 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

characteristic energy. He removed every 
one who had opposed his election, putting 
his political friends and adherents in their 
places. Whether he was the author of the 
phrase ''To the victors belong the spoils," 
or not, he was the creator of the system ex- 
pressed by it. 

It was a stormy administration from be- 
ginning to end. But it was vigorous and 
patriotic. The party of the President was 
opposed to devoting public revenue to in- 
ternal improvements, and vetoes rained 
thick and fast upon congressional appropri- 
ations, which he believed to be unconstitu- 
tional and inexpedient. 

In 1832 a convention met in South Caro- 
lina. The tariff law recently enacted was 
pronounced "null and void" and ''not 
binding upon the citizens of the State." 
They declared that any measure of force by 
the United States Goverment for the purpose 
of levying duties on the commerce of South 
Carolina, would justify that State in regard- 
ing itself as no longer a part of the Union. 
This was the " Ordinance of Nullification.^'^ 

The view of State sovereignty held by 
John C. Calhoun and embodied in this ordi- 
nance was not a new one. It was the logi- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 189 

cal outcome of decentralization uncliecked 
by the opposing force. Several States had 
resisted the tie which bound them to the 
Federal Government, notably some of the 
New England States during the war of 1812. 
But none had ever gone so far as to threaten 
secession by a formal declaration. It was 

" The little rift within the lute 
That by and by might make its music mute." 

But the man for the emergency was at the 
helm. When Jackson heard this first at- 
tempt upon the life of the Nation he ex- 
claimed "By the Eternal ! — The Union must 
and sJiall be preserved ! Where is Scott ? " 
The tariif measure was not the measure of 
his own party ; but he declared his intention 
of carrying it out to the letter ; and that he 
should treat all armed resistance, as ^ ' Trea- 
son against the United States P South 
Carolina saw that the Government was des- 
perately in earnest. The matter was finally 
adjusted by what was known as the ''Clay 
Compromise," which conceded a gradual 
diminution of the tariif. 

One of the most memorable debates in the 
history of Congress was during this contro- 
versy with Senator Hayne on the one side 



190 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and Daniel Webster on the other, well called 
the "Battle of the Giants." 

President Jackson's financial policy was 
no less vigorous than his treatment of Nulli- 
fication. The Charter of the National Bank, 
created during Washington' s administration 
had expired in 1811. In 1816 a new bank 
was incorjDorated in its place called The 
BanJc of the United States. The charter of 
the second Bank expired in 1836. President 
Jackson took this occasion, to exjDress his 
disapproval of having public moneys used in 
that way. When the Act was passed to re- 
charter the bank, (1832) he vetoed it, and 
the Institution expired with its charter. 
He then proceeded, against the advice of his 
Cabinet, to remove the public funds from 
the vaults of the bank, and distribute them 
among the various State Banks, which 
lent the money on easy terms to the peo- 
ple. The country was Hooded with paper 
money. 

Under this delusive stimulus business re- 
vived, and an era of apparent prosperity set 
in. Men plunged into wild speculation. 
Villages and cities were laid out by hundreds. 
Great works were projected. Foreign immi- 
grants, and native born citizens from the 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 191 

eastern States, streamed into the fertile lands 
of the North-west. 

In the midst of this rainbow tinted dream, 
Martin Yan Biiren the late Vice-President 
was elected President of the United States 
(1837) with Richard M. Johnson as Vice 
President. 

Scarcely was the inauguration over, when 
the storm burst. Within two months. New 
York merchants alone had failed to the 
amount of 100,000,000 dollars, and New Or- 
leans to half that sum. Every part of the 
country shared the general ruin. Banks 
failed, public works and manufactures 
ceased, hundreds of thousands of people 
were thrown out of employment, eight 
States were bankrupt, and even the general 
government had to ask for indulgence in 
making payments. The States, excepting 
Mississippi and Florida, ultimately paid 
their debts in full ; but it was long before 
American bonds were regarded without sus- 
picion in the money markets of Europe. 

Michigan joined the Union in 1837 and the 
removal of Indian tribes to reservations west 
of the Mississippi was carried on during 
this administration. The Creeks, Chero- 
kees, Kansas and Osages, who were still 



192 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

lingering in States and Territories, consented 
finally to give up their homes and to receive 
in exchange tracts of specified extent within 
certain limits ; the Government promising 
to stock them liberally with cattle and other 
needful things, and to pay a considerable 
annuity for a specified number of years. 
And so these forlorn remnants of Tecumseh's 
Confederation commenced their involuntary 
migration toward the Pacific. 

The Winnebagos in Wisconsin, and the 
Sacs and Foxes in Illinois, after agreeing 
to sell their lands to the Government stub- 
bornly refused to move, and under the 
Chief, Black Hawk made a long resistance 
to the troops. Finally, however, they ex- 
changed their lands for tracts west of the 
Mississippi, and an annuity in money and 
supplies. 

The Seminoles in Florida were more ob- 
stinate. For seven years they fought in 
impenetrable marshes, whose noxious vapors 
destroyed more lives than Indian arrows. 
Not until 1842 was the war ended by 
Generals Scott and Taylor. It had cost 
thousands of lives and 30,000,000 dollars. 

The most important measure during Pres- 
ident Van Buren's administration was an 



HISTORY OF THE UI^^ITED STATES. 193 

Act requiring public money to be kept not 
in banks, but in the treasury at Washing- 
ton, or in the sub-treasuries in other cities, 
and also requiring banks to secure their 
operations by depositing funds with the 
Government. 

This sub-treasury bill was a very unpop- 
ular measure, and it defeated the Presi- 
dent's re-election; but experience has proved 
its wisdom. Its effect was beneficial from 
the first. A wholesome condition quickly 
set in, and in time prosperity and confidence 
returned. 

Excepting the four years of John Quincy 
Adams' administration the Democrats had 
been in power for forty years. But now it 
was considered the party of financial failure. 
In 1836 the Government was not alone out 
of debt, but had a surplus of 37,000,000 dol- 
lars. In 1837 the country was a financial 
ruin. This was attributed to President 
Jackson's arbitrary and abrupt change in 
the financial system of the country, followed 
by a demand, at a time when such a measure 
was inexpedient, that payments for public 
lands be made in coin — called the ''Specie 
Circular." 

Accordingly, the party in favor of the 



194 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

United States Bank, and of a high tariff, 
elected its candidate ; General William 
Henry Harrison was placed in the Presi- 
dency by the Whigs in 1841, and John Tyler 
was Vice-President. 

Two other matters had ruffled the sur- 
face of affairs during the Van Buren admin- 
istration. A rebellion against Great Britian 
broke out in Canada, but was quickly suj)- 
pressed when the determined neutrality of 
the United States became apparent. The 
other matter was a boundary dispute on our 
northeast frontier between Maine and ISTew 
Brunswick. General Scott was sent to the 
scene of trouble, but the matter was peace- 
fully arranged by a treaty negotiated in 1842 
by Lord Ashburton on the one side, and 
Daniel Webster on the other. 

The Northeastern boundary line was fixed 
as it has since remained and the Right of 
Search was formally renounced by Lord 
Ashburton on the part of Great Britain. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

President Harrison died just one month 
from the day of his inauguration. This was 
a severe blow to tlie Whig party. The 
Presidential campaign had been one of the 
most exciting the country had ever known. 
Harrison' s birth allied him to all that was 
finest and best in the colonial era, while his 
long familiarity with frontier life, put him 
in close touch with the vigorous race of men 
of the later period whose life he had shared. 
Added to this were his splendid military 
achievements in the war of 1812, and politi- 
cal record since. He was a glorious stand- 
ard bearer for the party which had so long 
been excluded from power and the ''Log 
Cabin" and "Tippecanoe" carried him on 
a great wave of popularity into the White 
House, — only to die. 

John Tyler was President of the United 
States. To their bitter disappointment, the 
Whigs found their hard won victory was an 



19 G HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 

empty one. The man who by cruel accident 
represented tlieir party at the head of the 
Nation, was not a whig in sentiment. He 
twice vetoed a Bill for the re-establishment 
of the United States Bank, the very issue 
upon which the campaign had been fought, 
and his entire term was spent in a wrangle 
with the party which elected him. 

A disturbance in Rhode Island known as 
Dow's Rebellion occurred at this time, over 
proposed changes in the Constitution ; and in 
New York State there was an uprising of 
what were known as the Anti-renters. Men 
who had leased lands from large-landed pro- 
prietors, the Livingstons, Van Rensselaers 
and others formed a combination to resist 
the collection of rent. The rioters were 
subdued by the Military, and the matter 
was finally adjusted by the courts sustaining 
the rights of the proprietors. 

The new religious sect called the Mormons 
were also a cause of trouble at this time. 

Joseph Smith a man living in Palmyra, 
New York, had claimed to have a supernatu- 
ral revelation by which he was directed to a 
spot where he found golden plates covered 
with inscriptions. By supernatural aid he 
translated them and wrote the ''Book of 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 197 

Mormon," said to be the history of a pre- 
historic race which once had occuxned this 
Continent. This book did not supersede the 
Bible, but only modestly supplemented it, 
with the x)leasing dogma that their Chief or 
Prophet, receives direct inspiration from 
God, and that the practice of Polj^gamy is 
not only approved but commanded by Di- 
vine authority. This cult had a rapid and 
l^henomenal growth, and Josej)h Smith and 
his disciples soon had a city of several thou- 
sand inhabitants in Illinois. The people of 
Illinois determined to rid themselves of this 
abomination. Joseph Smith was mysteri- 
ously killed (1844), and the City of Nauvoo 
destroyed, (1846), the Mormons taking 
temporary refuge in Iowa, until their new 
Prophet Brigham Young, was inspired to 
lead them across the Rocky Mountains to 
Salt Lake, where they thereafter remained 
undisturbed in their own territory. 

In Mexico there existed a poor imitation 
of the North American Republic of which 
Santa Anna was President. The part north 
of the Rio Grande known as Texas had been 
settled largely by people from the United 
States, and in 1835, the Texans on account 
of grievances refused allegiance to Santa 



198 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Anna's authority and set up an independent 
Republic with Samuel Houston as President. 
Santa Anna invaded the territory with a 
large army, and was met by a Texan force 
under the command of Houston. After a 
struggle the Mexicans were defeated, and 
among the prisoners was Santa Anna, who 
purchased his liberty by ordering the invad- 
ing army to retire beyond the Rio Grande, 
and by acknowledging the independence of 
Texas. After ten years of independent ex- 
istence, this State asked to be admitted to 
the Union. 

This created the great party issue for the 
next Presidential campaign. Texas on ac- 
count of its geographical position would be 
a slave territory, and would be an enormous 
accession to the power of the party desiring 
its extension. Mr. Calhoun frankly admit- 
ted that the purpose of annexing Texas was 
to ' ' extend the dominion of slavery, and to 
secure its perpetual duration." The North- 
ern statesmen as frankly declared that for 
that very reason they should oppose it. The 
issue of slavery was thus sharply defined 
making a line of cleavage between the North 
and South, and the Tariff as a party ques- 
tion was for twenty years submerged by the 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 199 

more tumultous strife over the slavery ques- 
tion. 

Something was about to happen before 
which the annexation of Texas, and the rise 
or fall of i^arties dwindles into insignificance. 
A new force was coming into the life of the 
nation with results incalculable in their 
magnitude. Humanity ]3assed into a new 
epoch when it drew upon the invisible crea- 
tion for the practical uses of man. The 
Magnetic Telegraph invented and brought 
to its final completeness by Prof. S. F. B. 
Morse, makes the dividing line between 
things old and new. 

The first telegraphic line was built between 
Baltimore and Washington with 80,000 dol- 
lars appropriated by Congress for that pur- 
IDOse. The first words uttered by the tele- 
graph were ''What hath God wrought!" 
but the first public message sent, was the 
news of James K. Polk's nomination for 
President. People incredulous of news 
brought in such strange fashion, waited to 
be assured in the usual way. 

In the campaign conducted upon this is- 
sue Henry Clay was candidate of the Whig 
party, and James K. Polk of Tennessee of 
the Democratic. The question of the ad- 



200 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mission of Texas was decided by tlie tri- 
uinpli of the Democratic candidate. It was 
admitted as a State December 1845, before 
liis inauguration. 

The last act of President Tyler was the 
signing of a bill for the admission of two 
more States to the Union. Florida and Iowa. 

Things are never in reality as distinctly 
classiiied and as cleanly separated as they 
seem in their narration. Within the grand 
divisions of public sentiment, there are al- 
ways diverse sub-divisions, and the preva- 
lence of an anti-slavery sentiment in the 
IN'orthern States was in spite of the fact, 
that there was a large body of people who 
did not share it. It had its battle ground 
at the North as well as at the South and has 
yet. 

" But comet-like and adding flame to flame, 
The priests of the New Evangel came," 

When the young William Lloyd Garrison 
started his paper The Liherator^ in 1831, 
and for long after that in the days of the 
"Anti-slavery society," the word "aboli- 
tionist ' ' was a term of reproach the bravest 
shrank from. At the same time in 1831, 
none felt ashamed of the judge and jury in 
Connecticut, who sent a young girl to jail 



HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 201 

for teaching colored girls to read and write ; 
then burned her house after first mobbing 
it with stones, axes, and crowbars. Such 
moral turpitude as well as such stupidity 
makes one pause, and ask if this Anglo- 
Saxon race in America be after all deserving 
of the high destiny i3redicted for it ? But 
Divine patience is greater than human. The 
seed dropped by heroic men in unprom- 
ising soil germinated and bore abundant 
fruit. 

In 1830 there began an effort to check an- 
other evil which was blighting homes and 
breaking hearts throughout the land. The 
Anglo-Saxon is a drinking as well as a fight- 
ing animal, and New Engianders consumed 
a goodly quantity of their own rum, and the 
people in Pennsylvania and North Carolina 
their own corn whiskey; and port, and 
brandy were an indispensable part of hospi- 
tality everywhere. Drinking in fact was not 
considered a vice, and when John Pieri3ont 
preached in Massachusetts against selling 
rum, there was a storm of indignation before 
which he went down. He was tried by an 
Ecclesiastical Court and compelled to leave 
his pulpit. In 1840 the AVashingtonian 
Temj)erance Society was formed, and it 



202 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

proved another New Evangel, whicli swept 
over the land rescuing and purifying. 

It seems a very simple time as we look 
back upon it, but to the people then, it was 
full of bewildering novelty. Stevenson's 
hazardous experiment of having coaches on 
iron rails drawn by steam engines had been 
successfully tried in England, and in 1828, 
it was repeated in America. Railroads run- 
ning short distances had been in use for a 
year. They were a great advance in trans- 
portation, enabling horses to draw heavier 
loads with less effort, but in 1830 Peter 
Cooper's Locomotive, the first in America, 
was run on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road, and in 1831, regular trips w^ere made 
between Albany and Schenectady in this 
new and daring fashion. Illuminating gas 
had been introduced in some of the larger 
cities, and by this new illuminant men read 
European dispatches only fourteen days old, 
brought by Ocean Steamers. — They lighted 
tlieir gas with lucifer matches made by 
steam and machinery (1834), and used pins 
manufactured by tlie same magic (1831), 
which some enthusiast said would also soon 
supersede hand work in sewing ! 

When we read of John Jacob Astor laying 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 203 

the foundations for a colossal fortune in 
Astoria, Oregon (1811), of Harper Brothers 
Publishing House (1817), of a Manhattan 
Gas Company in New York (1823), an Adams 
Express Company (1840), and of Webster's 
Dictionary (1841), we realize that we are 
the vestibule of the present. 

In addition to the annexation of Texas as 
a cause of dispute with Mexico, there was 
an unsettled boundary question, as to 
whether the Rio Grande or the river Nueces 
to the north of it, was the frontier line of 
Texas. General Zachary Taylor was sent in 
1846 to occupy the disputed territory lying 
between the two rivers. The battles of Palo 
Alto and Resaca de la Palm a were fought 
and won, and the Mexicans were driven 
across the Rio Grande, Taylor following 
them and capturing the city of Monterey. 
(September 1846). 

So precisely what the Whigs had predicted 
had happened. In consequence of the an- 
nexation of Texas, the United States was at 
war with Mexico. It was a costly price 
which must be paid for a State which one- 
half of the country did not desire, but on 
the contrary, believed it was a misfortune 
to possess, even as a free gift. But unpopu- 



204 HISTORY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 

lar as it was, the war must be maintained 
Avith vigor. The brave Taylor and his men 
must be reinforced. One hundred thousand 
men volunteered and a campaign was ar- 
ranged on a comprehensive scale. The ' ' Ar- 
my of . the West" under General Stephen 
W. Kearney was to invade New Mexico 
"The Army of the Centre" under General 
Wool to move from San Antonio toward 
General Taylor' s force, which was known as 
the "Army of occupation." 

It took less than two years for these three 
invading streams to accomplish their task. 
General Taylor' s work was finished after he 
had driven Santa Anna's demoralized force 
before him at the capture of Buena Vista, 
February 22d, 1847. From that time there 
was an unbroken chain of victories for the 
army of General Scott. Vera Cruz, Cerro 
Gordo, Cherubusco, Molino del Rey and 
Chapultepec, were only gates passed in a 
triumphal march, to the city of Mexico. 

The castle of Chapultepec on a high jutting 
rock commanding the city, was its last de- 
fense. When that fell, September 13th, 1847 
before General Worth' s furious attack, the 
vanquished Santa Anna fled, and in a few 
hours, the giant peak of Popocatepetl 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 205 

looked down upon a strange sight. The 
stars and strij)es were floating over tlie palace 
of the Montezumas ! 

What had commenced as a flght over a 
question of boundary had expanded into a 
war of conquest. While in the south, 
Mexico was helpless in the grasp of Scott, 
Kearney's army had invaded and held New 
Mexico and California. 

No one suspected the golden treasure con- 
cealed under the green garb of California 
which was captured from the Mexicans by 
Captain John C. Fremont aided by Commo- 
dores Sloat and Stockton with an adventur- 
ous band of his own, before the arrival of 
Kearney's regular forces. He had been de- 
tailed to discover a new route to Oregon. 
His band of sixty engineers was attacked 
by the Mexicans in California, so the athletic 
young Captain stopi^ed en route to Oregon, 
and with the aid of Commodores Sloat and 
Stockton, freed the State from Mexican 
authority. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

In the treaty of peace concluded February 
2d, 1848, a vast expanse of territory was 
ceded to tlie United States composed of Up- 
per California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and 
New Mexico. For this the United States 
agreed to pay 15,000,000 dollars and to as- 
sume the debts due to American citizens on 
account of unsettled claims against the 
Mexican Government. 

As those great cyclonic storms starting in 
the distant south-east are caught in the 
swing of the earth's rotation and carried to 
the north-west, so the storm of political i3ar- 
ties was in the grasp of a great movement 
which was destined to carry the dominion 
of the Republic to the Pacific coast. The 
triumph of the democratic measure of an- 
nexation, resulted in an expansion not 
dreamed of by either Whig or Democrat. 



HISTORY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 20'7 

At the time Mr. Polk became Chief Magis- 
trate there was another unsettled question 
which threatened serious trouble. Great 
Britain claimed the region called Oregon, 
extending from the Rocky Mountains to 
the Pacific. The first settlement in Oregon 
was in 1811 by the American Fur Company, 
near the mouth of the Columbia River. 
It was named Astoria after John Jacob 
Astor the founder of the Company, and was 
within the disputed territory. 

The adjustment of the rival claims of the 
tAvo countries was jpeacefully settled in 1846 
by a treaty, which established the present 
boundary between the possessions of the 
United States and Great Britain. From the 
great region thus conceded Oregon Territory 
was organized in 1848, out of which later, 
the . States of Oregon, Washington, and 
Idaho were formed. 

The United States had now attained its 
full territorial growth. It had at a bound, 
— in less than one administration, — acquired 
as much territory west of the Mississippi, 
as it before possessed east of it. Men had 
difficulty in adjusting their ideas to such a 
sudden expansion, and there were not a few 
who believed it was a calamity, and some 



208 HISTORY OP THE UlS^ITED STATES. 

who even bewailed the fact that we had ever 
overstejoped the natural boundary of the 
Mississippi River. 

The question of the extension of Slavery 
rea]3peared. Here would be not alone 
Texas, but a legion of other States below 
the line indicated by the Missouri Compro- 
mise. Something must be done to check 
the x)reponderating influence this would 
give to the x)arty of the South. 

David Wilmot, a representative in Con- 
gress from Pennsylvania, introduced a prop- 
osition known as the "Wilmot Proviso," 
by which slavery was to be excluded from 
all the territory recently acquired from 
Mexico. The " Proviso " was defeated, but 
a new j)olitical party formed about the pro- 
posed measure called the " Free Soil Party," 
v/hich in the next Presidential campaign 
v/as led during a brief existence by Martin 
Van Buren. In 1848 there were three 
Presidential candidates in the field. 

General Taylor was the candidate of the 
Whigs, and on account of his rugged and 
admirable personal qualities, and his recent 
military achievements, he was like Harrison 
carried by a great wave of i3opularity into 
the White House, — there like Harrison to 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 209 

die, before he liad fairly entered upon the 
great responsibilities of his office. 

Millard Fillmore the Vice-President now 
became President and was inaugurated the 
day after General Taylor's death, July 10, 
1850. 

Scarcely was the treaty with Mexico 
signed when the unsusjpected riches of 
California were revealed. Gold was dis- 
covered in 1848. The report sped around 
the world, and from every country poured a 
throng of excited adventurers into the new 
territory, which in 1850 became a State. 
San Francisco from a drowsy Spanish Mis- 
sion, and a village of mud cabins, became in 
a year a busy town of 15,000 eager inhabi- 
tants, many of them daring, reckless, and 
capable of any crime. A Vigilance Com- 
mittee comi30sed of men of character and 
determination in 1851 brought order out of 
the pandemonium, so that California, which 
had been created as if by a cataclysm, soon 
became as peaceful and well ordered as the 
older States. 

When California petitioned to be admit- 
ted to the Union as a free State, the smoul- 
dering fires leaped into fiame. The political 
situation had never been as critical. Now 



210 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Congress was confronted with the question 
of admitting slavery into the recently ac- 
quired territory. The South, under the 
leadership of John C. Calhoun demanded 
that the territory acquired by the blood and 
treasure of the whole Union, be opened to 
all the people alike with their property, in- 
cluding slaves. The North while it had no 
disposition to molest the institution where 
it existed, was resolved to oppose its ex- 
tension to a territory then free, and also 
demanded that slavery be abolished in the 
District of Columbia. 

Another cause of exasperation at the 
South was the harboring of fugitives from 
slavery by abolitionists in the North ; whom 
they also accused of luring slaves from their 
masters and inciting revolt. The bitterness 
caused by this, was far more intense, than 
that produced by the question of extension. 
John C. Calhoun urged the people to accept 
no compromise and many talked openly 
of Secession and of a Southern Confeder- 
acy. 

Such was the condition when President 
Taylor died and President Fillmore replaced 
him. The Union seemed on the verge of 
disruption, and the question of admitting 



HISTORY OF THE UN'ITED STATES. 211 

California as a free State, was tlie brand 
which lighted the fires of controversy in 
Congress. 

Millard Fillmore had two colossal supports 
at this time. Henry Clay the ^' Great 
Pacificator" was himself a slave holder, but 
opposed to the extension of slavery into 
free territory. He was using all the magic 
of his ingenuity and eloquence to bring 
about a peaceful solution, and was seconded 
in these efforts by Daniel Webster, who was 
then Secretary of State. One thing which 
had further complicated the situation, was 
that Texas claimed the Territory of New 
Mexico, and the right to plant the insti- 
tution there under the protection of her own 
Constitution. 

The famous Compromise of 1850, was 
finally agreed upon, it provided : — 

1st. — For the admission of California as a 
free State. 

2nd. — Texas was to receive $10,000,000 and 
to relinquish her claim upon New Mexico. 

3rd. — The States which should be formed 
out of the newly acquired Territory should 
have slaves or not as they themselves should 
elect. 

4th. — A ^^ Fugitive Slave Law" was to be 



212 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

enacted wliicli should enable masters to re- 
cover escaping slaves from free States. 

It was over this Fugitive Slave Law that 
the fire of dissension burned fiercest and 
hottest at the North. Daniel Webster lent 
all the weight of his power and eloquence 
in support of the measure. He claimed that 
under the Constitution the Southern States 
had a right to hold property in slaves, and 
that to aid in their escape was an invasion 
of those rights. 

By some he was branded as a traitor to 
the principles of his party. '^ Humanity it- 
self cried out against the enormity of it. 
Should the people at the North become 
sleuth hounds in running down human 
beings escaping from cruel bondage 1 ' ' 

Others maintained that it was the highest 
statesmanship, in opposition to his own 
personal sympathies, upon Constitutional 
grounds, to maintain the property rights of 
the South. 

The party of Conciliation carried the day, 
and the danger of disruption was for a time 
averted. 

During the administration of President 
Fillmore, there was a filibustering attempt 
upon Cuba, for the purpose of its annexation 



HISTORY OF THE UN'ITED STATES. 313 

to the United States. It ended in defeat 
and in the execution of Lopez the leader at 
Havana, 1851. 

As the compromise bill was not a party 
measure, but equally supported by Whigs 
and Democrats (only opposed by the Free 
Soil party) there was not much excitement 
over the next Presidential campaign. 
Franklin Pierce the Democratic candidate 
was elected by a majority over General 
Scott, the nominee of the Whig party, and 
entered upon the duties of his position 
March 4th, 1853. 

When this administration began, there 
were three vacant places. Three towering 
personalities had disappeared which would 
never be replaced. Calhoun died in 1850, 
and Clay and Webster in 1852. Never again 
would the South have a leader with the 
genius of John C. Calhoun, to defend its 
political system. Never again would the 
principles of the party of the North be up- 
held with an eloquence like Webster' s, rival- 
ing the highest models in antiquity; nor 
have in its Councils a man possessing such 
magical influence over friends and enemies, 
nor one so skilled in devising measures for 
calming storms of political passion as Clay. 



214 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Happily it seemed as if in a new era of 
good feeling, these great leaders would not 
be so much missed. But these were only the 
halcyon days preceding another storm. 

In 1854 it broke forth anew. Stephen A. 
Douglas introduced a bill for the organiza- 
tion of two new territories to be called Kan- 
sas and Nebraska, and leaving the question 
of slavery to be determined in each territory 
by its inhabitants. As these territories 
would lie in great part above the line agreed 
upon by the Missouri Compromise, this 
would be virtually a repeal of that measure, 
which was supposed to have settled the mat- 
ter for all time. In spite of strenuous oppo- 
sition the bill passed. 

This was held at the north to be a shame- 
ful breach of contract. Now — the only thing 
to be done, was to iill the territory with peo- 
ple who did not want slavery — to be met by 
a similar effort from the South to fill it with 
people who did. A race to these ends was 
commenced. Trains of emigrants were sent 
from the North to secure the State for free- 
dom, and were met by similar trains pouring 
in from the South, resolved to take posses- 
sion of it for slavery. Armed bands of pro- 
slavery men crossed over from Missouri and 



HISTORY OF THE U:S'ITED STATES. 215 

took possession of the polls, and were re- 
sisted by armed anti-slavery men lighting to 
get tlieir votes into the ballot boxes. Houses 
were pillaged and burnt, men murdered in 
cold blood and for several years Kansas was 
a pandemonium . 

While these things were happening in the 
West, and while public sentiment at the 
North was from time to time being shocked 
by the i^ursuit and capture of fugitive slaves, 
under the action of the new law, a very mod- 
est little book was being eagerly read in 
every house in the land. Among the im- 
portant factors in an approaching National 
crisis, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" cannot be for- 
gotten. It was one of the conspicuous forces 
at work at that time. 



But the life of the country is not in its 
politics. Exj)ansion was going on in arts 
and industries, and larger and freer concep- 
tions were coming into the spiritual and in- 
tellectual life of the people. Two epoch- 
making works were being read and discussed, 
"Vestiges of Creation," and " Footprints of 
the Creator," by Hugh Miller. Geologists 
were tapping the rocky foundations of the 



216 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

earth and turning over new leaves in that 
indestructible book. The six creative days 
were taking on a new interpretation. The 
churches saw the foundations of religion 
threatened in the discrediting of the Mosaic 
narrative. Emerson's philosophical Essays 
were awakening new ideals and Hawthorne's 
strangely subtle romances had put a new 
grace and life into a literature which was 
already enriched by a Coo^Der and a Bryant 
and an Irving. 

Industrial arts had so far progressed that 
a Palace of glass and iron was built in New 
York City, and in 1853 an International In- 
dustrial Exhibition was held there. Rail- 
roads were extending in all directions ; and 
noAv there were plans for connecting the rich 
Pacific coast with the east. Although many 
thought the scheme fantastic and absurd, 
Congress ordered surveys to be made. Five 
different routes were explored in 1854-55, 
and the difficulties to be overcome were 
ascertained. 



CHAPTER XXy. 

The Whig party had no longer any reason 
for existing. The United States Bank, — 
the tariff, — and internal improvements, — 
were all swallowed up in the slavery ques- 
tion. There had been in 1853, a short lived 
attempt to make the exclusion of foreigners 
from office, — and to some extent from citi- 
zenship, — a rallying principle for a new 
party, called the American, or Know Noth- 
ing party. But it had failed. 

In 1854 the Republican Party was organ- 
ized upon the one principle of, resistance 
to tlie extension of the slave holding inter- 
ests. It was composed of most of the 
Whigs, all the Free Soilers, and the 
moderate Democrats. John C. Fremont, 
was chosen as its first candidate in 1856 in 
opposition to James Buchanan. The Demo- 
cratic candidate was elected, and James 
Buchanan on the 4th of March, 1857, was 
made President of the United States. 

One would be led far astray who sup- 



218 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

posed that the Repuhlican party organized 
in 1854, had the same blood in its veins as 
the Republican party of Jefferson. Repub- 
licans and Democrats are the political suc- 
cessors of Federalists and Republicans. 

The party of Hamilton, the Federalist, — 
became first the Whig party, — and finally 
the Republican. The party of Jefferson, 
the old Republican party, was in time 
called the Democratic, by which name it is 
known to-day. 

The issues have changed many times, but 
the abiding tendencies are the same as in 
the days of Jefferson and Hamilton. The 
one tends toward centralization and the 
other toward individualism. The inspiring 
principle of the one secures organization, 
permanence and solidity, the other con- 
tributes the inspiration and the vital cur^ 
rents for which the organization exists. 
Other issues have sometimes obscured these 
tendencies, which still have remained the 
general characteristics of the two great 
political divisions. 

Early in 1857, the case of a negro named 
Dred Scott came before the Supreme Court. 
He pleaded for freedom on the ground that 
his master had taken him into a free State. 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 219 

This was regarded as a test case, and the de- 
cision was awaited with profound anxiety. 

The Court decided that the ordinance of 
1787, prohibiting slavery in the ''Territory 
of the North-west," and the Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820, excluding it north of a cer- 
tain line, were both alike unconstitutional. 
It held that an African whose ancestors had 
been slaves, had no rights under the Con- 
stitution^ and that masters might take their 
slaves, as they would any other ]3roperty, 
into any State in the Union, without forfeit- 
ing their right of ownership. 

The North stood appalled before this de- 
cision. It declared that the highest court 
in the land, from which there was no appeal, 
had removed the last barrier to the exten- 
sion of slavery, and had "nationalized" 
what v/as before only a local institution. 
As a counter move, several States passed 
"Personal Liberty" bills, which secured to 
fugitives from slavery, the right of trial by 

In the meantime in spite of legislation, 
and Supreme Court decisions, and the ob- 
vious leanings of the President, the South 
was losing ground. California, that great 
war-prize which they had confidently ex- 



220 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

pected to reinforce their strength in Con- 
gress, was represented there as a free State ; 
and now, Kansas, for which they had so 
desperately struggled, for the same purpose, 
was inundated by such a stream from the 
North that it would be impossible, by fair 
means, or by violence even, to fasten slavery 
upon the Territory. The fruits of their 
victories were slipping from their grasp ; 
and there were no more States with which 
to offset those yet to be made out of north- 
ern Territories. It had been the practice, 
hitherto, when a free State was admitted, at 
the same time as a peace offering to offset it 
by the admission of a slave State. Now, 
Minnesota (1858) and Oregon (1859) swelled 
the number of free States to twenty-one. 
While the South had fifteen, which number 
it could never exceed. The political re- 
sources for the conflict were exhausted. 
Angry men began to think of other means 
and measures. 

Just at this critical period something oc- 
curred which was like dropping a match 
into a powder magazine. John Brown's at- 
tempt with twenty-three men to liberate the 
slaves of Maryland and Virginia (Harper's 
Ferry 1859) and thence to cause a general up- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 221 

rising of 4,000,000 slaves in the South, was 
the dream of a madman, who believed he 
was a divinely appointed liberator. His 
death upon the scaffold placed him among 
the martyrs, and Wendell Phillips, looking 
down into the ox)en coffin, upon his calm 
majestic face said, — "He has abolished 
slavery." 

The South embittered, unreasonable, sus- 
picious, would not be convinced that this 
was not part of a deep laid movement at the 
North. There was deepening antagonism 
almost aversion at the South, and a divided 
sentiment at the North. 

Amid these distracting currents, the north- 
ern branch of the Democratic j)arty itself 
separated into two factions : the extremists, 
who adhered most strongly to the South, 
and those opi^osed to the recent measures 
relating to the extension of slavery. Men 
realized that the campaign which was to 
occur at a time when feeling was under such 
high tension, would be the most critical the 
country had ever known. 

Stephen Douglas and John C. Brecken- 
ridge led the two Democratic factions, and 
Abraham Lincoln was the candidate of the 
Republican party. 



222 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The region of compromises was passed. 
The South had gone beyond the reach of the 
allurements and blandishments of politi- 
cians. The magic of Clay's influence would 
have been powerless, nor could a cohort of 
angels have allayed the passions aroused. 
The two sections diverged at the first funda- 
mental principle. The South believed the 
State was paramount to the Union ; the 
North that the Union was su]3reme over the 
State. But unthinking peojjle who cared 
little for constitutional subtleties, merely 
saw a people at the North whom they had 
been taught to believe were their inferiors 
in valor and in other personal qualities, in- 
cessantly meddling with their domestic con- 
cerns, and insolently invading and trampling 
upon their rights in property. Their pros- 
perity, their civilization, their very exist- 
ence from day to day, was built upon 
slavery. It fed and clothed and sheltered 
them, and was intertwined with every fiber 
of their being from the cradle to the grave. 

The whole policy of the North had for years 
been a war upon their most sacred rights, and 
upon the corner-stone of their civilization. 
The colonists in 1783 did not more passion- 
ately believe in the righteousness of their 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 223 

cause, nor more sedulously instruct tlieir 
children in tlie duty of its defense. 

The sentiment at the North was far differ- 
ent. There was no such great stake. They 
were struggling — not for self-preservation, 
but for a principle. That jjrinciple was to 
them a vital and a sacred one — but they de- 
fended it with more of solemnity than fury. 
Defeat would mean for them the introduc- 
tion of a virus which they considered de- 
structive — not the tearing down of their 
whole social fabric. They could well be 
calm. But, if in time, another danger 
threatened — if the life of the Union — sacred 
beyond that of any institution — if that 
should be ever really imperilled, then they 
too might be warmed to the white-heat of 
passion. 

It is well always to bear in mind that it 
was climate and soil, after all, which created 
such antagonistic conceptions, and that if 
New England and Pennsylvania and Ohio 
had been favorable to the growth of cotton 
and rice and tobacco, if the northern States 
had gradually become enmeshed and en- 
tangled in slavery, familiarized with its 
cruelties, and in love with its kindly fea- 
tures, if their fortunes, and the future of 



224 HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

their children had depended upon its con- 
tinuance, they too might have fought for its 
preservation. Their ministers might have 
found authority in the Bible for its exist- 
ence, and mothers might heroically have 
surrendered sons in its defense. The War 
of the Rebellion was born of patriotism, 
sincere and heroic, but a patriotism which 
unhappily had its roots in a principle false 
and vicious at its core. It was the principle 
of &tate Sovereignty^ inculcated and power- 
fully and ingeniously advocated by John C. 
Calhoun, which led a brave people astray in 
their political conceptions. 



CHAPTER XXyi. 

An immense tide of immigration from the 
old world set in after tlie famine in Ireland 
in 1847, and had continued ever since with 
constantly increasing volume. This stream 
of humanity poured into the great West, 
where towns and cities sprang into exist- 
ence with phenomenal rapidity. Everywhere 
in the North there was growth and activity. 
The census of 1860 showed that the manu- 
factures in one year had amounted to 2,000,- 
000,000 dollars. Common schools, normal 
schools, colleges were everywhere instruct- 
ing the people, and bringing up the average 
level of intelligence. There were schools 
for professional and special instruction, a 
Military Academy at West Point, a Naval 
Academy at Annapolis, and the Smithsonian 
Institution at Washington for the ' ' increase 
and diffusion of knowledge among men." 
Science, literature, art and culture were 
promoted by societies, lyceums, lectures, all 
filling the air with stimulating influences. 



226 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The South in its agriculture had the most 
fruitful source of National and individual 
prosperity ; but very different conditions 
prevailed. The tide of immigration did not 
flow into the slave States. The scanty pop- 
ulation in the rural districts had few schools. 
Labor was considered degrading to white 
men, and a large class known as ''poor 
wdiites," was in a condition of ignorance, 
misery and depravity, below that of the 
slave. That remorseless truthteller, — the 
census, — showed that the South was grow- 
ing enfeebled in wealth, — in poi)ulation, — 
and in Congressional strength, and in Elec- 
toral votes. This meant dissolution, — unless 
it could be arrested. 

"Cotton is King" was adopted as their 
motto of defiance. If Lincoln was elected, 
they would forever end this strife. They 
would sever themselves from the Union, and 
be a separate and distinct people. With 
their cotton, and their slave labor and with 
English mills eager to consume all they could 
produce, they would be a rich and a homo- 
geneous nation. 

The North realized the gravity of the sit- 
uation. On account of the division in the 
Democratic party, Lincoln's election was 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 237 

probable, and it soon became evident that 
preparations were in progress for carrying 
out the threat of violently sundering the tie, 
if it coukl not be broken peacefully. 

Just at this crisis President Buchanan sent 
a message to Congress urging changes in the 
Constitution, which should embody the re- 
cent decision of the Supreme Court, and he 
declared, that unless this act of justice were 
done, the Southern States icould he justified 
in Revolutionary resistance to the Govern- 
ment. 

It was evident that the man at the helm 
would never keep the ship from going on 
the rocks. Who would do it ? Washington 
was the headquarters of the conspiracy. The 
Cabinet was chiefly composed of the leaders 
of the movement. Congress and the public 
offices were filled with conspirators. Tlie 
small army largely of&cered by Southerners 
was scattered on the distant frontiers, and 
the navy in distant seas. A great part of the 
cannon, rifles and military stores were in 
Southern forts and arsenals. 

Some of the more conservative leaders ad- 
vised a general convention of the Southern 
States, before taking final action. But 
South Carolina, hot for secession, would not 



228 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

take the chances of a retrograde movement. 
This fiery standard bearer led the way in 
tliis as in everything. Abraham Lincoln 
was elected in November 1860. On Decem- 
ber 20, 1860, South Carolina passed an ordi- 
nance of secession, and was quickly followed 
by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia 
and Louisiana. 

Delegates from these six States met in 
convention at Montgomery, Alabama, Febru- 
ary 4, 1861. They organized a government 
under the name of the Confederate States 
of America^ and elected Jefferson Davis of 
Mississippi, President, and Alexander H. 
Stevens of Georgia, Vice-President. 

Members of Congress from the South and 
three members of the Cabinet resigned and 
returned to their own homes, there to plot 
treason against the Government. Officers 
in the Army and Navy believing they owed 
allegiance to their native States rather than 
to the Union, resigned by scores. 

There were rumors of intended assassina- 
tion and Lincoln guarded by an armed force, 
passed to his inauguration through a land 
silent in the hush of expectancy. But men 
did not think there would be war. Nothing 
had been done yet which might not be un- 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 229 

done. ''No coercion" was on every one's 
lips. Statesmen were trying to devise 
measures wliich would propitiate, and so 
careful were they to do nothing which 
would cause irritation that the long con- 
tested State of Kansas came on tip-toe 
into the Union without one word about 
slavery. 

Lincoln had been a few days in his office, 
when overtures for a peaceful separation 
were received from the "Confederacy," 
these were without hesitation rejected. 

In rejjly to this, the States in rebellion 
seized the forts, arsenals, mints and Nation- 
al property of every description within their 
borders; and in addition the entire army of 
the frontier with all its equipments, — ■ 
revenue-cutters, custom-houses and sub- 
treasuries were turned over to the Confeder- 
acy. All moving smoothly on grooves well 
oiled by officers of the late Cabinet ! — There 
remained in the possession of the United 
States only Fort Sumter in Charleston Har- 
bor, and Fort Pickens on the coast of 
Florida, which latter its gallant young com- 
mander, Lieutenant Slemmer, refused to 
turn over at the command of his superior 
officer. 



230 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Still the liiisli was not broken at the 
North. It was andacions, — dastardly, — but 
it was not war. A high spirited and exas- 
j)erated people were carrying things with a 
high hand, but they would not go beyond 
that. It could all be smoothed out again, 
Avhen the paroxysm of passion was over. 
There was not a man in the south who when 
it came to the point, would raise his hand 
against the United States. 

So all hoped, and many believed on April 
11th, but on April 15tli, Fort Sumter was 
a ruin, and President Lincoln had issued a 
call for 75,000 troops to defend the Govern- 
ment from an armed rebellion in the South. 



Eighty-six years had elapsed since the 
Declaration of Independence, and seventy- 
two since the beginning of National life in 
America. 

Never in the history of the world had the 
planting of a new nation been attended by 
such results. The eyes of Christendom were 
fastened upon the experiment of a govern- 
ment for the people by the people. It 
seemed as if the American Nation had dis- 
covered the long sought secret of combining 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 231 

strength at the centre, with unlimited op- 
portunity for the individual. 

There had been two great foreign wars,— 
Indian Wars, — internal dissensions and con- 
vulsions, — but nothing had arrested the 
vitalizing currents which swiftly carried life 
and development into every form of activit}^, 
and by a neAv sort of alchemy converted 
calamity into a higher i)rosperity, and 
quickly blended inflowing streams of foreign 
population with the homogeneous mass. 

The f ramers of the Constitution had never 
dreamed of the enormous strain to which it 
would be subjected ; but that marvelous in- 
strument had proved sufficient to hold to- 
gether the most swiftly expanding nation 
the world had ever seen. Political i^arties 
had struggled over it, the South had stretch- 
ed it in one way, and the North in another, 
it had been twisted and bent, — but not 
broken. Now it was to be seen whether it 
would bear the strain of civil war, — such a 
war as the world had not known in nineteen 
hundred years. 

The North was throbbing with an adoring- 
patriotism for a government which had 
achieved so much. 

In the South, this sort of patriotism was 



232 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

dead, — or dying; and in its place was a 
patriotism inspired by love of State, and 
devotion to an institution from wlncli sprang 
a local prosperity. They were weaned from 
tlie mother they had once loved, and im- 
patient to destroy the Union they had 
helped to create. 

The 12th of April 1861 is a dark day in 
the National Calendar. In the grey dawn 
of that morning the first cannon ball from a 
Confederate battery struck Fort Sumter. 
There was no more wavering or indecision 
in Wasliington. While the walls of Sumter 
were crumbling under the fierce rain of shot 
and shell from nineteen rebel batteries, the 
North was solidifying into an adamantine 
unity. Men forgot whether they were whigs 
or democrats, and only knew that they were 
patriots, as they listened to the echoes of 
those guns in Charleston Harbor, where 
seventy men were defending a beleaguered 
fort against seven thousand. Not until his 
barracks were set on fire by shells, and his 
exhausted garrison was half blinded and 
suffocated in the casemates did the brave 
Anderson capitulate. The fort was a ruin. 
But it had done a splendid work for the 
cause of the Union. No argument had ever 



HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 233 

been so convincing and eloquent, as was that 
riddled flag, brought north by Major An- 
derson. 

When President Lincoln on April 15th 
called for 75,000 troops for three months' 
service, the North rose as one man. In less 
than thirty-six hours troops were pouring 
into Washington. 

The sudden shock of Avar precipitated an 
immediate decision in the doubtful States. 
The whole success of the movement depend- 
ed ux)on their action. If Virginia, Mary- 
land and Tennessee should fail them, their 
cause was lost. But, one after another four 
States were swept into the fatal current, Vir- 
ginia first, quickly followed by Arkansas, 
IS"orth Carolina and then Tennessee. Al- 
though the disloyal sentiment was strong in 
the remaining border States, Delaware, 
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, it was 
met by a still stronger loyal sentiment. 

In spite of efforts to carry them over the 
brink, the tide of secession was stayed at 
their frontiers. In Western Virginia there 
also prevailed a loyal sentiment sufficient to 
make them act independently of the seced- 
ing State. The fragment broken off from 
the parent State in this convulsion was ad« 



234 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mitted into the Union in 1861, under the 
name of West Yirginia. 

Had Maryland gone into the Confederacy, 
the difficulties and dangers for the North 
would have been enormously increased. 
Washington was the first point of attack and 
of defense. Had the Confederate flag early 
in the war waved over the Capital of the 
Union, there might have been a recognition 
of the Confederacy abroad, which would 
have brought about a different issue. As it 
was, even with Maryland as a safe highway 
for the passage of troops, that danger was 
narrowly escaped. 

The Capital of the Confederacy was re- 
moved to Richmond, and "On to Rich- 
mond ' ' was the answering cry to ' ' On to 
Washington." General Scott, the veteran 
leader was in command of the Union forces, 
and General Beauregard of the Confederate. 
Both armies were hovering about the Poto- 
mac, making silent and deadly j)reparation 
for a life and death struggle between broth- 
ers, the one for the preservation and per- 
petuation of slavery^ the other for the pre- 
servation and perpetuation of the Union. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

No one realized the horrible magnitude 
of the struggle about to commence. William 
H. SeAvard, then Secretary of State, pre- 
dicted that it could not last more than ninety 
days. The South, on the other hand, be- 
lieved that if her symx)athizers at the North 
did not paralyze the government by their 
ox)position, as she hoj^ed and believed they 
would, France and England would quickly 
combine to put an end to a war Avhich would 
cut off the cotton supply from their facto- 
ries. Although the South had no means for 
producing or procuring any more, she had 
captured sufficient military stores and equip- 
ments to last for a long time. But she had 
captured something better than military 
stores. The Northern army had scarcely 
enough officers remaining to command it ; 
and as for the navy, when President Lincoln 
proclaimed the rebel ports in a state of 
blockade (April 19th), there was only one 



236 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

war steamer on the Atlantic coast, and not 
an armed vessel on tlie Mississippi or any of 
its branches. 

The border States which had not seceded 
were to a great extent, in secret, if not in 
avowed rebellion. The troops on their way 
to Washington were attacked in Baltimore 
by an angry mob. April 19th, 1861, was the 
anniversary of the battles of Lexington and 
Concord, Avhere the first blood in the war of 
tlie E-ebellion was shed. By a singular co- 
incidence, the first blood shed in the war of 
the rebellion, eighty-six years later, was on 
that day ; and in two weeks more, disloyal 
men in Missouri had turned over to the Con- 
federacy all the military and pecuniary re- 
sources of that State, and Harper's Ferry 
and the Navy Yard at Norfolk had been 
seized, owing to intrigues from within the 
Federal lines. 

The country, in response to a call for 
75,000 men, had sent 300,000, and yet no- 
thing was done — there seemed no effort to 
check the sjireading rebellion. 

The peoi)le at the North heard of nothing 
but disaster, encroachment and loss. Tlie 
rebels, on the other hand, grew richer and 
stronger and better organized every day. 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 237 

It sometimes requires more heroism to 
wait than to act. General McDowell knew 
better than they the difficulties to be over- 
come in meeting General Beauregard, who 
had taken up his position at Manassas Junc- 
tion on Bull Run Creek, a few miles south of 
Washington. 

On July 21st McDowell yielded to the 
pressure from behind, and opened upon the 
Confederates. So furious was the attack 
that the rebels were driven back. It looked 
as if it might fare badly with them. But 
they were rallied by General T. J. Jackson, 
who, as some one said, "stood like a stone- 
wall," and was ever after known as Stone- 
wall Jackson. Behind this Stone-wall the 
rebel army stood its ground until reinforce- 
ments arrived under Kirby Smitli, and 
Early. The Union army, under a deadly 
cross-fire, was then forced back in disorder. 
As they reached the bridge in the rear, a 
bursting shell, among the teamster's wagons 
and an overturned caisson, choked the en- 
trance to the bridge. Cannon were aban- 
doned, horsemen plunged madly through the 
struggling mass, and a retreat became a 
panic-stricken rout of fugitives fleeing back 
to Washington. 



238 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

So ended the first general engagement of 
the Rebellion. It was a humiliating defeat. 
But it served the North better than a vic- 
tory. The South had always believed the 
task would be easy. The people at the North 
were shop-kee]3ers, not fighters. In over- 
confidence, it relaxed its exertions. The 
North, with desperate earnestness, set about 
the work of organization and preparation. 
Congress voted 500,000,000 dollars and 500,- 
000 more men. To General McClellan was as- 
signed the task of organizing an army out of 
raw recruits, men fresh from counting houses 
and fields, more used to the pen and the 
plow than to the musket. 

General Benjamin F. Butler in command 
at Fortress Monroe, early in the war created 
a jjhrase and a policy which had an impor- 
tp.nt subsequent history. Some fugitive 
slaves fled to him for protection, imj)loring 
him to free them. He had not the authority 
to do that. But he ingeniously decided that 
their return to their masters would be an aid 
to the Rebellion and hence he pronounced 
them ''Contraband of War." Spades were 
put into their hands to help the Union cause 
and the " Contraband " thereafter played a 
large part in the conflict. It was a unique 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 239 

feature of this War that the South could 
send all its male j)opulation to the front, 
and yet have several million slaves at 
work, producing food to support their ar- 
mies and their homes. This was one of 
the many sources of strength which enabled 
them for a time to maintain the struggle 
with such ease and success, that France and 
England accorded them Belligerent Rights. 
It was a great point gained for the Con- 
federacy to be thus placed on an equal foot- 
ing with the United States. The hope of 
foreign aid or perhaps even of intervention, 
ran high. Two commissioners, Messrs. Mason 
and Slidell were appointed to go to Euroj^e 
(if they could get there), and to use their 
personal persuasions in inducing a recogni- 
tion of the Confederacy by France and Eng- 
land. Captain Wilkes of the U. S. Navy 
overtook the British Mail Steamer Trent, on 
which they had embarked, and the two 
Commissioners were brought back prisoners 
to the United Sjtates. England probably 
forgot the 10,000 seamen she had taken from 
American vessels, when she sternly demanded 
the release of the two Southern Commission- 
ers. But President Lincoln said ' ' we fought 
England in 1812, for doing just what Captain 



240 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

Wilkes lias done." The act was repudiated 
by the Government, and the prisoners per- 
mitted to return to their homes. 

The United States was building ships and 
converting a paper blockade into a real one. 
It soon had a fleet of several hundred war 
vessels on the ocean, and on the Western 
rivers. The Confederacy also was not idle, 
and had succeeded in buying and building 
a number of ships in Great Britain, which 
were darting hither and thither, and chasing 
the United States flag off the coast. Later 
the Alabama joined this Confederate fleet, 
and its depredations led to an historic reck- 
oning at the end of the war. 

When the Norfolk Navy Yard was seized 
at the beginning of the war, one of the 
prizes was the ship Merrimac. The Con- 
federates covered her with a double plating 
of iron, and she was converted into a float- 
ing fort, which did tremendous damage to 
the wooden ships of the enemy at the mouth 
of the James River near Fortress Monroe. 
The Cumberland and the Congress were sunk 
by her March 8, 1862. She returned the 
next day to finish the destruction of the 
Northern fleet preparatory to going up the 
Potomac to storm and reduce the Capital. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 241 

With the Confederate flag flying in Wash- 
ington — would come recognition from 
abroad, — a raising of the blockade, — and the 
end of the war. 

It was a very ingenious chain, and looked 
as if its links might hold. But there was 
one factor which had not entered into the 
plan. A strange little craft suddenly 
appeared on the scene, looking "like a 
cheese-box on a raft." This was the new 
iron Monitor (the creation of Ericsson's fer- 
tile brain), commanded by Captain Worden. 
The floating fort became a helpless wreck 
before this new incarnation of destruction, 
and more Monitors were speedily added to 
the Northern fleet. 

At the beginning of 1861, a Federal Army 
of more than 500,000 men was confronted by 
an almost equal number of Confederates 
along a line extending from the Potomac to 
Kansas. There were small wars within a 
greater war all along this line. In Missouri 
and Kansas there Avas a Civil War within a 
Civil War, for the control of those rent and 
divided States. In Kentucky and Tennessee 
there was a fierce struggle for control of the 
Mississippi and its branches. In West Vir- 
ginia General Rosecrans was co-ox)erating 



242 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

with and i)rotecting McClellan's great force 
which was cautiously advancing upon Rich- 
mond. 

At the mouth of the Mississippi another 
movement was being inaugurated.^ That 
river was tlie great artery whicli carried 
a life current to the heart of the Confedera- 
cy. Its control was perhaps the most vital 
thing in the war. Seventy-live miles below 
'New Orleans stood two strong forts on op- 
posite sides of the river, and just below them 
two iron chains were stretched across, mak- 
ing the approach of shij)s seemingly impos- 
sible, while to make assurance doubly sure, 
there were stationed above the forts fifteen 
armed vessels, two of them iron clad and in- 
vincible as the Merrimac. It would be an 
act of strange hardihood to try to pass these 
defenses. But two men were on their way 
from Fortress Monroe, who were going to 
make the attempt. Captain Farragut of 
the Navy with a fleet of fifty wooden ves- 
sels, and General Butler with a force of 
15,000 men. Farragut' s plan was, with the 
aid of Commander Porter' s mortar boats, to 
break through the chains, — silence the forts, 
— conquer the Confederate fleet — and take 
the City of New Orleans. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 243 

While arranging for this desperate move- 
ment a fearful struggle Avas going on in 
Kentucky and Tennessee for control of the 
upper Mississippi, and to get access to the 
Gulf States, in co-operation with the move- 
ment from the South. It was a struggle of 
giants for a great stake. The Confederates 
expected to hurl such an overpowering 
weight against the Northern line, that they 
would break through, and Kentucky — lost 
to them by other means, — would be theirs 
by conquest. 

A name was about to emerge from com- 
l^arative obscurity, which was to rival those 
of the great military leaders in history. 
General Halleck ordered General U. S. Grant 
to attack Fort Henry on the Tennessee river 
near Cairo, Illinois. This fort was taken by 
Commander Foote before Grant reached 
there, so he moved on Fort Donelson, a few 
miles above. There the battle raged for three 
days ; then — General Buckner asked Grant 
what terms he would grant him if he gave 
up the fort. The answer was, — "No terms 
except an immediate and unconditional sur- 
render." The hrst great victory of the war 
was won (February 16th, 1862). Large 
quantities of arms were captured and 15,000 



24A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

prisoners. The surrender of Nashville fol- 
lowed, and Kentucky and Tennessee were in 
the hands of the army of the Union. 

General Grant followed this victory up 
swiftly ; — he moved up the Tennessee to 
Pittsburg Landing (or Shiloh) on the con- 
lines of Alabama. There was a horrible 
slaughter of 25,000 men — among whom was 
one of the greatest and best of the Southern 
leaders — General Johnston. The victory 
was as comi)lete as at Fort Donelson, and 
followed the next day by another at Island 
Number Ten on the Mississippi. These 
sledge hammer blows succeeding each other 
in such quick succession, accomplished more 
than had been done since the opening of the 
war, nearly one year before. Now the Mis- 
sissippi River was opened to the Union ves- 
sels as far as Yicksburg. 



CHAPTEH XXYIII. 

The first year of the war would have 
closed in gloom at the North but for the 
raj^id events just related, the taking of New 
Orleans, and the destruction of the Merri- 
mac which occurred at nearly the same time. 

At the East the year had been one of 
preparation and organization. Nothing of 
great moment had been accomplished. There 
had been struggles here and there ; engage- 
ments which were sometimes victories, and 
more often defeats. The most hopeful 
realized that the situation was grave, if not 
alarming. The war had assumed enormous 
proportions, and had developed an extraor- 
dinary strength in the rebellious States. 
Southern sympathizers at the North 
swarmed out of hiding places and were 
outspoken in disloyalty. They pointed in 
derision at McClellan's inactive army mak- 
ing an "advance" upon Richmond which 
never advanced. 



246 HISTORY OF THE U:N^ITED STATES. 

But suddenly all had been changed. In- 
stead of a Confederate army moving irresist- 
ibly into Illinois and Indiana, with the rich 
cornfields of Kentucky feeding their victori- 
ous army, they were driven from their 
strongholds about the Mississippi and that 
river was opened to Vicksburg. Grant's 
army was in the Gulf States burrowing 
into the heart and centre of the Confederacy. 
By October (1861) General Rosecrans had 
driven Rebellion out of West Virginia, and 
Fremont and Halleck in Missouri, had 
forced the tide of disloyalty back over 
towards the Arkansas border. 

These things can be quickly told, but in 
their accomplishment there had been des- 
perate encounters, and Northern and South- 
ern blood had mingled in awful profusion 
on both sides. There were deeds of splen- 
did daring and heroism, — for the cause of 
disloyalty no less than for that of loyalty. 
Priceless lives were thrown away as if of no 
value, — compared with the capture of a 
cornfield or a barren hillside! — It is a sicken- 
ing story in its details, and can only be en- 
dured by> keeping in view its animating 
purpose, and what might have been had the 
war not been fought. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 247 

A Federal Navy had come into existence, 
with magical swiftness, large enough to 
gnard the w^iole Atlantic and Gulf Coast ; 
— a thing which European States had said 
could not be done ; — and when the first year 
of the w^ar closed, it had become practically 
a vast siege. The South w^as completely cut 
off from supi^lies unless blockade runners 
could evade the vigilant police of the Fede- 
ral shii)s. A few Confederate vessels had 
slij^ped away to sea, and Avere ravaging the 
coast as privateers, infiicting great damage 
on Federal shipping, and if unable to get 
back home with their prizes, they would 
find a refuge in foreign ports, and there bide 
their time. 

There Avas a desj^eration in the Southern 
cause which was an enormous stimulant 
to valor. They had no ship yards, — no roll- 
ing mills, — they had not an army of skilled 
mechanics working for them out of resources 
almost inexhaustible,— but they had an en- 
thusiasm and a unanimity unmatched at 
the North. They had officers trained at 
West Point Avho w^ere masters of the art of 
war and of strategy, and a Commander in 
Chief, who was not only a great military 
leader, but a man with ideal personal quali- 



248 HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 

ties, who invested the cause abroad with 
dignity and with a semblance of justice. 

When General Robert E. Lee in June 
1862, took command of the Confederate 
forces, things began to move as if at the 
touch of a master hand. He sent Stonewall 
Jackson to West Virginia. While Banks 
was being driven back to the Potomac and 
McClellan had lost the support of Mc- 
Dowell's 40,000 troops, Lee sent the dashing- 
Stuart with a body of Cavalry to the rear of 
McClellan' s army there to tear up railroads, 
burn carloads of provisions, or do anything 
destructive that came in his way, while he, 
— the Commander in Chief, under cover of 
these diversions, planned for the long de- 
layed conflict with McClellan' s army. 

By July the flght was on. What was 
known as the "Seven Days' Battle," raged 
furiously outside of Richmond, but without 
any decisive result. Over 15,000 men were 
slaughtered on each side. Lee had captured 
guns and x)risoners, and the Union army had 
been able to look for seven days on the dis- 
tant spires of the Confederate capital. That 
was all that was gained. The two exhausted 
armies retreated for rest, the one to the 
James river, and the other to the Potomac. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 249 

While these battles were in progress, 
President Lincoln called for 600,000 more 
troops. It began to be a question with 
some, whether the loyalty at the North 
would hold out under such a prolonged 
strain. Even its immense population be- 
gan to be drained. Some there were whose 
hearts were heavy with apprehension. 
What if after all this frightful effusion of 
blood — they should fail ! Would it not be 
better to let the seceding States go ? Was 
any end worth snch horrible human sacri- 
fice ? — Half the families in the land were 
mourning for precious dead. — Rachels 
weeping for their children, who could not 
be comforted. But the heart of the country 
was undismayed. — Men, even with eyes 
blinded with tears, could see that the life 
of the Nation was more precious than the 
life of her sons. 

On April 24th, three months before this 
fruitless struggle in front of Richmond, 
Commodore Farragut carried out his care- 
fully prepared plan by one of the greatest 
feats of daring in history. In what was a 
literal rain of fire, he severed the chains 
across the Mississippi — sailed boldly past 
the two forts — destroyed twelve out of the 



250 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

thirteen gunboats and ironclads, — and as he 
advanced upon New Orleans, General Butler 
took military possession of the City, with 
its blazing stores of cotton and ships, which 
had been fired by the rebels when they saw 
the city was lost. Farragut pressed on up 
the river, captured Natchez and Baton 
Rouge, then passing tlie guns of Yicksburg 
he joined the Union fieet above. Now the 
great artery would be lost to the Confeder- 
acy, unless they could hold their two re- 
maining forts — at Yicksburg, and Port Hud- 
son. It was the month after, in March 1862, 
that the little Monitor destroyed the Merri- 
mac in Hampton Roads. These were des- 
perate blows upon the life of the Confeder- 
acy, but her great strength centred about 
Richmond — and she relied upon Lee's abil- 
ity to turn the tide by an aggressive move- 
ment which should cai3ture Washington, 
reclaim Maryland, and might even land the 
war in the very lap of the Northern States, 
and make them sue for terms. 

In August Lee crossed the Potomac into 
Maryland, followed by McClellan's army. 
StoneAvall Jackson in co-operation with him 
captured Harper' s Ferry with its arsenal and 
12,000 prisoners. 



HISTOr:Y OF THE UNITED STATES. 251 

The long delayed struggle was at liand. 
These were days fraught with eager hoj^e at 
the South, and grave fears at the North. 
On the 17th of September, in the beautiful 
Valley of Antietam, the collision came. For 
fourteen hours the mountains echoed with 
the roar of 500 cannon and mortars. 

If angels ever weep for humanity, they 
must have done so that night, when 25,000 
men, — a few hours before in the full tide of 
manhood and strength, were dead or wound- 
ed on the battlefield, lying in ranks "like 
swaths of grass cut down by the scythe." 

Neither had gained a victory, but Lee's 
advance was checked and he returned to 
Virginia. 

As the year 1862 was dying. Burn side in 
an attempt to advance upon Richmond was 
defeated at Fredericksburg, and driven 
back toward Washington, and General 
Rosecrans in Tennessee was Avaging a con- 
flict with the Confederate General Bragg 
with only some slight advantage gained. 
In spite of the staggering blows in Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee, and in New Orleans, 
all was inconclusive and whatever the end 
was to be, it was far off. 

While the army and navy were achieving 



252 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

their great victories in the early part of 
1862, the President and Congress were con- 
sidering ways of grai)pling with the institu- 
tion for which the war was being fought. 
An Act was passed in March by which the 
principle, upon which the Republican party 
was formed in 1854, was made a Statute. 
Slavery was prohibited now and forever in 
the territories of the United States. By 
another Act, it was abolished in the District 
of Columbia, and compensation provided 
for the slave-owners. 

Very soon after this President Lincoln rec- 
ommended an Act which Congress adopted 
and passed, on April 2d. It was an offer to 
any State — those in insurrection or the bor- 
der States — to co-operate in a plan for a 
gradual abolition of slavery within its bor- 
ders — and offering to give such State " suffi- 
cient pecuniary aid to compensate for the 
inconveniences, public and private, produced 
by such change of system." 

When this oifer was made it seemed x)er- 
fectly clear to those making it that slavery 
was eventually doomed. It was not expected 
that any but the border States would enter- 
tain the offer. But it was made in good 
faith to all, and was an opportunity gra- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 253 

ciously offered to the States in rebellion to 
lay down their arms, and in a plan of gradual 
emancipation to receive about $400 for each 
slave. 

This measure was not a bribe for peace, 
from a people fearful of the result. Had it 
been made in 1861, it might have been so con- 
strued. But it was in the hour of victory, 
and when the end seemed assured which 
would place the disposing of the entire ques- 
tion of slavery in the hands of the Federal 
Government. It was made with an earnest 
desire to deal fairly with the South and with 
scrupulous regard for its rights. The logic 
of events was proving that the destruction 
of slavery was not far off, and yet President 
Lincoln was willing to reimburse the slave- 
owners for a calamity they had brought upon 
themselves. 

We look in vain for an example of more 
magnanimous statesmanship. It was not 
accepted even by the border States. So en- 
tangled was their social and XDolitical life 
with slavery, they could not contemplate an 
existence without it, and would not believe 
it was doomed. 

As the year wore on, the end of the con- 
flict seemed further off than it had one year 



254 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

before. There was no less determination, 
but there were fewer to respond to calls for 
troojDs. Those most eager had gone first to 
the front, and now — bounties had to be of- 
fered, — and the time was not far off when men 
would have to be drafted, and under compul- 
sion go themselves or send substitutes to the 
war. What enabled the rebellious States to 
force such sacrifices upon their country was 
the very thing for which they had created the 
war. It was those millions of slaves toiling 
for them and feeding them, which left the 
whole male poi3ulation free to fight the 
North. Without their slaves they could not 
have carried on the conflict for one day. 

A sad-faced, peace-loving man sat in the 
White House, brooding upon these things. 
With calm and even justice he was arriving 
at a decision, one of the most momentous in 
the history of the Country — and even of the 
world. As a measure of military necessity 
he resolved — to free the slaves in America. 

Five days after the awful slaughter at 
Antietam (September 22, 1862), he issued a 
proclamation which was to go into effect on 
January 1, 1863, after which time " all per- 
sons in the United States held as slaves 
should he thenceforward and forever free. ^'' 



HISTOKY OF THE UJ^ITED STATES. 255 

Thus by a single stroke of the pen, between 
three and four millions of human beings were 
given that most natural of all rights, — the 
ownership of themselves ; and America was 
freed from the one disiiguring blot upon her 
civilization. 

An Amendment to the Constitution sub- 
sequently confirmed the act of the executive. 
There were no more contrabands. Fugitives 
from slave and border States were all free- 
men now, and rapidly enlisted in colored 
regiments which had already done good ser- 
vice in the war. Of course the great body 
of negroes were unconscious of the change in 
their condition, and went on toiling as if 
they were not freemen. But it gave a new 
aspect to defeat in the Confederacy. More 
than a thousand million dollars worth of so- 
called property, had been declared non- 
existent. Before, the North had been light- 
ing to restore the Union as it was : — now, it 
was to restore a Union in which slavery did 
not, and never could, exist. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

I^ the spring of 1863 General Hooker made 
an advance upon Richmond. At Chancel- 
lorsville he was met by General Lee and 
Stonewall Jackson, and defeated after a two 
days' battle (May 2, and 3, 1863). This vic- 
tory was dearly bought by the Confederates. 
Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by 
his own men. He was a rock of defense to 
the Confederacy, and they could have better 
afforded to have lost Chancellorsville, and 
saved their great General. 

One month later, Lee made his second 
attempt to carry the war across the border. 
His plan was to march through Pennsylva- 
nia to Harrisburg and thence to Philadel- 
phia. At Gettysburg he was met by General 
Meade. There took place the most decisive 
and perhajDS the most destructive of all the 
battles of this terrible war. It lasted three 
days and was fought by the Confederates 
with magnificent bravery. When shot and 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 257 

shell x^longlied through their ranks, as they 
made their last desperate charge, they never 
faltered, and only after their army was 
broken into fragments did they confess that 
they were defeated. Nearly 50,000 brave men 
were dead ; (almost as many as were swal- 
lowed up in Lisbon in 1755 !) the blue and 
grey mingled on the battle held in awful 
confusion. Lee had failed, and was never 
to make the attempt again. 

At the very hour that Lee was retreating 
(July 3, 1863) another desperate struggle was 
being decided at Yicksburg. For seven 
weeks Grant and Sherman with 70,000 men 
had been besieging that city, where women 
and children were hiding from bursting 
shells in caves dug in the earth. When even 
the "mule steaks" gave out and there was 
scarcely a cracker a day, with which to feed 
the inhabitants, they gave up, simply be- 
cause human nature could endure no more. 
Yicksburg was surrendered July 4, 1863. 

This was a war of unprecedented magni- 
tudes, in the extent of territory involved, 
and in the number of men engaged. The 
surrender at Yicksburg was on the same co- 
lossal scale. Fifteen Generals, 31,000 men 
and 172 cannon were turned over to Grant 



258 HISTORY OF THE UN'ITED STATES. 

and Sherman — tlie greatest surrender of 
men and material that had then ever been 
made in war, and only surpassed since by 
the capture of Metz and Paris by the Ger- 
mans. 

Five days later Port Hudson was taken 
and the great river ran unvexed from its 
source to its mouth. 

Grant and Sherman then turned to the 
aid of Rosecrans' army, which had been 
driven out of Chattanooga. The Confed- 
erates held that beautiful valley and also 
Lookout Mountain, the green and rocky 
pyramid which commands it like a natural 
fortress. 

From its pinnacle one looks out upon a 
surging, tumbling mass of clouds, until they 
melt under the sun' s rays and disclose the 
Tennessee River, winding like a silver rib- 
bon into the grey distance. 

General Hooker charged up the steep, 
rugged sides of Lookout Mountain. For 
two days in N'ovember the "battle above the 
clouds" was being fought. The Confeder- 
ates were driven from the natural strong- 
hold, and Grant, Sherman, Thomas and 
Hooker then forced them back into Georgia. 

The unresting Sherman dashed on across 



HISTORY OF THE UITITED STATES. 259 

Mississippi like the embodied spirit of de- 
struction. Railroads disaj)peared, rails were 
ripped up and broken, bridges burnt, ma- 
chine shops and locomotives destroyed, and 
every means for reaching him at Chatta- 
nooga was swept away as if by a tornado, 
and as he rested from this, he and Grant 
were planning a concerted movement ujpon 
Richmond — not by way of the Potomac ! 

March 2, 1864, General U. S. Grant was 
assigned to the chief command of all the 
armies of the Union. Hitherto there had 
been little concert of action and a conse- 
quent loss of the full benefit which might 
have been derived from great victories. 
Now, all the National forces were to move 
in obedience to one single will, toward the 
accomplishment of a single purpose. 

The Confederates had two chief centres of 
power. Lee near the Rappahannock guard- 
ed Richmond and the country south of it. 
Johnston at Dalton, Northern Georgia, held 
the country south and east of that point. 
The plan arranged for what was to be the 
last campaign of the w^ar was for Grant to 
move on Lee and capture Richmond ; for 
Sherman to march the same day on John- 
ston, and having disposed of him, to push 



260 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

his way on to the sea, thus cutting the Con- 
federacy directly in two. 

There is a desolate region in Western 
Virginia known as ''the Wilderness." On 
May 4th, at the threshold of that AVilder- 
ness, and sitting on a log. Grant pencilled a 
telegram to Sherman at Chattanooga. It 
was an order to move. At almost the same 
time, the march toward the sea, and the one 
through the Wilderness commenced, mov- 
ing irresistibly as fate on tlie concerted 
lines. 

Nothing but the path of a cyclone could 
equal the desolation left in the track of that 
march tiirough Gfeorgia. But no path of 
cyclone ever extended sixty miles wide and 
three hundred miles long, as did this great 
footprint of Slierman's army; 300 miles of 
railroad destroyed, the rails twisted and 
broi^en beyond repair, 60,000 men marching 
in four solid columns, with a cloud of caval- 
ry and skirmishers in front, — leaving the 
country as clean and as bare of food, as 
would an army of African ants. In vain 
did Johnston try by masterly strategy 
among the woods and mountains to arrest 
the advance. — In vain did Hood hurl his 
forces upon him as he neared Atlanta. Out- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 261 

generaled and cut off from supplies, Hood 
destroyed what he could of the mills and 
foundries which had been so j^recious to the 
Confederacy, and abandoned the city. 

Sherman had not come to Atlanta for 
rest. He burned the city, and then com- 
menced the real "March to the sea." In 
vain did Jefferson Davis try to lure him 
back. He ordered that Georgia should be 
abandoned and the troops be concentrated 
in an attack u23on Thomas at Nashville, be- 
lieving Sherman would turn to his rescue. 
Bat Sherman knew well what stuff there 
was in that "Rock of Chickamauga" and 
believed in Thomas' ability to take care of 
himself. 

By the middle of November he had cut 
all the railroads and telegraph lines con- 
necting him with the north, then — he and 
his army disax3peared from view as com- 
pletely as if the earth had swallowed them 
up During those four silent weeks he was 
pressing forward, just as before, four col- 
umns abreast, cutting a clean swath 60 miles 
wide, from Allan tn to Snvnnnah. Railroads, 
— provisions, — everything that was not root- 
ed to the earth, disappeared before him, and 
several thousands of negroes were clinging to 



262 HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 

the skirts of '' Massa Slierman's " army. In 
less than a month from the day he left At- 
lanta, he had stormed and taken Fort Mc- 
Allister, guarding the approach to Savan- 
nah, — and nine days later he sent the fol- 
lowing dispatch to President Lincoln. 

" December, 22, 1864. 

To His Excellency, President Liricoln, Washington, D. C. : 

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the City of 

Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and about 20,000 bales of 

cotton. 

W. T. Sherman." 

In the meantime Grant had been moving 
toward Richmond, overriding obstacles, 
fighting awful battles by the way, which cost 
the Union Army alone 60,000 men. At 
Cold Harbor, June 3, 1864, it is said, 10,000 
of his men fell in twenty minutes. Five 
hundred men a minute ! — Yet on he moved. 
The Confederates with a desperate bravery 
hurled their battalions at him, but could no 
more arrest or deflect his course than that 
of a glacier. 

In the meantime, Farragut (August 5, 
1864), had taken possession of the harbor of 
Mobile, thus closing that port against sup- 
plies from abroad, and Thomas at Nashville 
on December 15th and 16th had torn Hood's 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 263 

army into shreds. In July, Burnside liad 
undermined tlie fortifications at Petersburg. 
But that explosion only dug a gigantic 
grave for his men, who fell into the hands 
of Lee's army when they entered the city. 

In September Sheridan and Early were 
struggling in the Shenandoah Valley. 
There it was, that Sheridan made his famous 
' ' ride ' ' of twenty miles, to turn back a re- 
treating army, and converted defeat into 
victory. 

The Confederacy was rent and torn now at 
every point. Eleven States were dwindling 
to three. It was evident that a miracle 
could scarcely save it. 

Sherman with his host was sweeping 
North, fighting battles, capturing cities and 
in March was conferring with Grant at the 
James River, ( March 27, 1865). 

The end was not far off. On April 2, 1865, 
Grant captured Petersburg, Lee retreated 
from Richmond, — Jefferson Davis escaped — 
and on April 8, the army of the North was 
in Richmond and the flag of the United 
States was flying over the Capital of an ex- 
tinct Confederacy. 

At Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 
1865, Lee surrendered a famished and ex- 



264: HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

hausted army to Grant. The only condi- 
tions demanded were, — that the men should 
lay down their arms and return to their 
homes. 

Those who had horses were permitted to 
take them ; for as Grant said, ' ' they would 
need them for the ploughing. ' ' Then th e vic- 
torious General ordered 25,000 rations of 
food for Lee's starving soldiers. And so 
ended the great Wa?' of the Rebellion. 

Thousands of millions of dollars and a 
million of lives, North and South, had been 
expended. There was mourDing in almost 
every household in the land for some one 
gone. The South, which had borne the 
hardship and the horror of the struggle, 
with invading armies ^destroying her homes, 
devouring her substance, and scattering her 
treasures, was impoverished, embittered and 
seemingly forever estranged from her sisters 
at the North, who had suffered none of these 
things. Was anything worth such a price % 

One must realize the superior importance 
of National to individual life^ in order to 
answer that question. Two things which 
would have been fatal to the life of the na- 
tion had been destroyed — Slavery and the 
principle of Secession were forever aban- 



HISTOKY OF THE UNITED STATES. 265 

doned. Compromises and the efforts of 
peace-makers had only delayed a mortal 
struggle which had to come. The surgeon's 
knife is not pleasant, but it is sometimes re- 
membered with gratitude. The echoes ol: 
the rejoicings at the North fell upon broken 
and bitter hearts in the South, sitting in 
their ruined homes, slaves, fortunes, hopes, 
everything swept away, for a Cause to tiv^ni 
as sacred as ours, and which in their 
strangely misguided hearts awoke a more 
passionate and personal devotion. 

President Lincoln had entered upon his 
second term, with Andrew Johnson as Vice- 
President, a few weeks before the surrender 
of Lee. 

He appointed the 14th of April as a day 
of rejoicing and thanksgiving at the advent 
of peace, which was to be appropriately 
celebrated by replacing Anderson' s tattered 
Hag at Fort Sumter, just four years from the 
day of its surrender. 

On the morning of the IStli the telegraph 
bore terrrible news. The President had 
been assassinated at Ford' s Theatre the night 
before. Horror and lamentation replaced 
rejoicings. The half-crazed man who com- 
mitted ihe deed, had, with a few conspira- 



266 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tors, planned the death of all the Cabinet at 
the same time, and after that — we know not 
what. It is to be hoped and believed that 
no one of any character or importance was 
concerned in the plot. 

But it was a martyrdom, and coming so 
swiftly upon the conclusion of the war, and 
the end he had so helped to consummate, it 
was dramatically linked with all that had 
preceded it, and was the tragic climax of a 
great Epic. 

Andrew Johnson was now the head of 
the nation, upon whom was to fall the diffi- 
cult and delicate task of its reconstruction. 
First, an army of over a million men was to 
be disbanded. It was a strange spectacle 
when this great host was gathered in Wash- 
ington in May, 1865, and the Armies of the 
"East" and of the "West," in a column over 
thirty miles long, marched down the broad 
avenue from the White House to the Capi- 
tol. It required two days for this stream of 
sun-burnt veterans to pass in review with 
their tattered battle-flags festooned with 
flowers. 

A still stranger and a grander sight was it 
to see this great host quietly absorbed again 
into the Nation, without one act of lawless- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 2G7 

ness, and still more, to look in vain for one 
vindictive measure toward the leaders wlio 
had brought such unmeasured calamity upon 
the country. 

Jefferson Davis was captured May 11, and 
for two years imj)risoned at Fortress Monroe, 
awaiting a trial for treason, which was never 
to take place. Only one life was demanded 
at the close of the Rebellion. A Swiss 
named Wirz, who had perpetrated awful 
cruelties upon prisoners at Andersonville 
was tried and executed at Washington. 

Punishment fell with awful swiftness upon 
four who were implicated in the assassina- 
tion of the President. They were hung in 
Washington after a fair trial. Booth the 
perpetrator had been shot by his pursuers. 

Russia was the only European Govern- 
ment which had manifested sympathy wdth 
the United States during the assault upon 
her life. Both Eng-and and France viewed 
the struggle in the light of their ov/n inter- 
ests and personal ends. England was out- 
spoken in her preference for the Confederate 
Cause, and had no tears for a Rej)ublic she 
believed was going to pieces on the rocks of 
disunion. Napoleon III had believed it w^as 
a good time to plant the "Latin Race" in 



368 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

America, while tlie people had no time to 
talk about the "Monroe Doctrine." He 
placed the unfortunate Austrian Archduke 
Maximilian upon the tottering Mexican 
Throne. But Union victories and a firm 
remonstrance from Washington, sent the 
French armies flying back over the sea, and 
Maximilian fell into the hands of the Mexi- 
can liberals who did not want him, and was 
shot, leaving his poor crazed wife who still 
survives, the sole wreck from that ill starred 
enterprise, built upon a SoiUJiern Confed- 
eracy. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The Government was now confronted witli 
a situation for which there was no prece- 
dent, — and one which demanded statesman- 
ship of a high and original order. The 
genius of a Clay and of a Lincoln com- 
bined might not have been adequate for 
its needs. The Southern States had 
been conquered. What was to be done 
with them ? Were they still in the Union 
or out of it? Were they to be ruled as 
conquered territory, or were they to take 
their places as States as before? If the 
theory upon which the war was fought was 
true, — if secession was impossible, and the 
ordinances passed were "null and void," 
they were still members of the Federal 
Union, and entitled to send their Represen- 
tatives to Congress, and delegates to the 
Electoral College, and to have an equal voice 
with the victorious North in shaping the 



270 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

results of a great war of their own making, 
and in which they had been defeated. This 
was an obvious impossibility. 

If the country could have had at this 
critical time the influence of tliat great- 
hearted man with "malice toward none and 
charity for all," if it could have had the 
guidance of Lincoln's simple, conservative 
wisdom, a better way might have been 
found out of the labyrinth. But Andrew 
Johnson had no such genius. He had not 
the delicacy of touch needed for "binding 
up the Nation's wounds." He was obsti- 
nate and quarrelsome. He had his own plan 
for reconstruction, and spent his whole term 
in an unseemly wrangle with Congress be- 
cause they would not consent to it. 

He issued a Proclamation of pardon with 
few exceptions, to all th 3 peo]ple of the 
Southern States, on condition of an oath to 
support the Constitution and the Union. 
This oath was taken by the majority of the 
people, who also bound themselves to accept 
the Thirteenth Amendment, iDrohibiting 
slavery. Thus far the President and his 
Congress were in accord. But he went far- 
ther. He appointed Provisional Governors 
in the Seceding States, and by December 



HISTORY OF THE UI^ITED STATES. 271 

Governments had been organized and Rep- 
resentatives and Senators from all the States 
except Texas, were knocking at the door of 
Congress. The President declared they 
should come in, and Congress declared they 
should not. 

The Proclamations and Orders of the 
President were treated as of no value. Con- 
gress claimed that it alone had the power to 
prescribe the conditions for the admission 
of the Seceded States, and that they should 
not be admitted until something had been 
done to protect the negroes in their newly 
acquired liberty. It then passed a bill mak- 
ing the recent slaves citizens^ with the full 
protection granted under the laAvs of the 
United States. (Civil Rights Bill.) 

The President vetoed this, as he did every 
other bill with similar intent. He believed 
in leaving the South to deal alone with this 
and all questions relating to the negro and 
reconstruction. 

Congress incensed, passed two bills over 
his veto; and also another and more com- 
prehensive one, by which the South was 
divided into Districts, each of which was to 
be under a Military Gfovernor. A Four- 
teenth Amendment to the Constitution was 



272 HISTORY OF THE UN"ITED STATES. 

offered to the States for ratification, which 
embodied the provisions of the Civil Rights 
Bill. 

Tennessee was the only State which con- 
sented to accept this condition. The other 
ten refused to ratify the amendment, and a 
bill was passed placing them under Military 
rule. The freedmen were given the right to 
vote, and that right was denied to all who 
had been in rebellion against the Union. 

All these measures were passed over the 
President's veto. Had the States accepted 
the Fourteenth Amendment (as they all did 
finally), there might possibly have been a 
more conservative and a wiser policy in deal- 
ing with these very delicate questions. 

The enfranchisement of the negro, and 
disfranchisement of almost the entire white 
population, placed the Government of the 
Southern States in the hands of a people as 
unfit for such a task, as the imagination of 
man could conceive ; and the years of disor- 
der which followed, certainly did not justify 
its wisdom. The IN'orth had a right to make 
its own terms with a conquered peo]3le, and 
the South had to accept this as a part of the 
terrible punishment for its folly. But we 
cannot help thinking that the genius of the 



HISTORY OF THE UI?"ITED STATES. 373 

wise and gentle Lincoln would liave found 
some other solution of the difficult question 
which would have spared three years of dis- 
graceful misrule. If it had not been for the 
bitterness engendered by President John- 
son's advocacy of an unwise clemency, it is 
probable that a more conservative course 
might have been pursued. 

The breach between the President and 
Congress widened, and finally, a bill was 
passed over his veto, making it illegal for 
the President to remove any Civil Officer^ 
without the consent of the Senate. The 
President in defiance of this bill dismissed 
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War. He 
was impeached, and tried before the Bar of 
the Senate, Chief Justice Chase presiding. 
The trial lasted two months. A vote of 
two-thirds of the Senate was required for 
his condemnation. Just one vote was lack- 
ing and the President was acquitted. 

On Christmas 1868, a full and uncondi- 
tional pardon was issued to all j)ersons who 
had taken part in the War of the Rebellion. 
The Southern States could now fight their 
own battle at the j)oll^ with their enfran- 
chised slaves, if they would accept the con- 
ditions for their return. 



274 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

Other things besides reconstruction had 
been occupying the iDeople' s thoughts for the 
last four years. 

The enormous War debt of nearly 3,000 
million dollars was diminishing, and when 
Russian America was offered to the Govern- 
ment for the trifling sum of a little over 
seven million dollars, it was purchased at 
once. Some laughed at the idea of paying 
anything for what they called the " Refrig- 
erator of the United States." But the furs, 
forests and fish of Alaska, and perhaps its 
gold, were cheaply purchased by a sum 
which was spent every four, and sometimes 
every two days to carry on a war with our 
brothers, (during the last year). 

There were no dee^D wounds to heal at the 
North. Fortunes instead of being shattered, 
were augmented by a condition of remark- 
able prosperity. A steel pathway stretch- 
ing to the Pacific Coast was completed May 
10th, 1869. But a stranger pathway had 
been made under the sea, and on Friday, 
July 27, 1866, there was instantaneous 
communication between the tAvo continents. 
Fate again tried to entangle and defeat an 
adventurous enterprise, by sending the first 
message, on that ill omened day, Friday ; 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 275 

but with no more success than in the case of 
Cohimbus, and Fulton. From that hour to 
this, communication has never once been 
interrupted. 

There was stupendous growth in these 
two events. When America could talk with 
Europe as if face to face, and when the dis- 
tant Pacific Coast was brought as near as 
New York was to Boston in the time of the 
revolution, we had entered uj)on a different 
period, for which old methods would not 
answer. The life of the Nation was intensi- 
fied and quickened, and we began to move 
with a momentum which was to lead to a 
bewildering speed. When business men 
and merchants knew in an hour, of things 
happening in London and Paris, and when 
the money market changed from moment to 
moment with changing conditions abroad, 
business took on a new character. The door 
of opportunity was opened wider. Founda- 
tions for great enterprises and fortunes were 
being laid. 

The Pacific Road crossed nine mountain 
ranges, climbing and descending over 8,000 
feet. We cannot Avonder that it was con- 
sidered a triumph over nature. And at last 
the road to India was by way of America ! 



276 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

The shortest route to its teas, spices and 
silks was — not througli the open channel so 
eagerly sought by the old navigators — but 
on a shining steel pathway from New York 
to San Francisco, by which the treasures of 
the Indies may be reached in a little over a 
month. Columbus was right — the way to 
the east was by the west ! 

But more important still, the new Pacific 
railroad carried thousands of emigrants 
cheaply and quickly to the Far West, and a 
wilderness given up to wild beasts and sav- 
ages was to be subdued. Where had been 
only barren solitudes there were to be homes 
and waving grain-fields, and industry, and 
finally — great, prosperous and growing 
States, rich in natural resources, and in hu- 
man energy for their development. 

In the Presidential election of 1868, General 
Ulysses S. Grant, the nominee of the Repub- 
lican party, defeated the Democratic candi- 
date Horatio Se^^mour. Virginia , Mississippi 
and Texas had not yet accepted the Four- 
teenth Amendment, and did not ]3articipate 
in the election. All the other Southern 
States were represented in the Electoral 
College. 

The election of the great military leader 



HISTORY OF THE UXITED STATES. 277 

who had helped to crush the Eebellion, was 
an endorsement bv the conn try of the policy 
of reconstruction pui'sued by Congress. 

On March 30, 1870, the representatives of 
Texas, the last of all the seceded States, re- 
sumed their seats in Congress, and "an in- 
destructible union of indestructible States," 
was (it is to be hoped) for all time assured. 
The Thirteenth, the Fourteenth, and the 
Fifteenth Amendments, had at last been 
severally ratified by the States and were 
firmly imbedded in the Constitution. The 
first m^ade the negro free^ the second made 
him a citizen^ and the last made him a voter. 
Legislation had done all within its power to 
start a race helpless and ignorant as infants, 
upon a new career of freedom. 

The South possessing little more than its 
people and its land, also started at the same 
time, upon its strangely altered career.— 
Their magnificent valor in the field was 
known, — but no one suspected the capacity 
for quiet heroism existing in the Southern 
people. With an indomitable courage they 
set to work to restore their prosperity. 

The patient industry, the skill developed 
in fingers unused to toil, are beyond praise. If 
bitterness lingered in the hearts of some, who 



278 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

can wonder ! Should we not rather wonder 
that so many were able in so short a time to 
accept the sweei3ing consequences of their 
defeat. And we rejoice in knowing that 
the highest intelligence of the land soon 
recognized that an ultimate benefit to them- 
selves was secured in the removal of the 
blight of slavery. 

There commenced immediately after the 
war was closed an extensive emigration of 
Northern people into the South, Avho carried 
capital, energy and enterprise where it was 
sorely needed. Unhappily at the same time 
there were many unprincipled adventurers 
who saw an opportunity of plundering these 
defenseless States by manipulating and con- 
trolling their politics through the negro. It 
was trial enough for men of education and 
intelligence to see their own slaves, who did 
not even know the letters of the alphabet, 
sitting in their legislatures, making their 
laws. But, when these became the mere 
tools of thieves and plunderers, prepared to 
carry off everything left in the dismantled 
States, we cannot wonder that the people 
resorted to violence rather than endure it. 

This was also a misfortune to the South, on 
account of the indiscriminate bitterness it 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 279 

created against the Northern people, which 
resulted in driving away men of character 
and inHuence, and what it needed still more 
— capital — with which to build up its waste 
places. There was a surplus of capital and 
energy which was unhappily diverted from 
the South at this critical time. 

The North knew the secret of prosperity. 
By the year 1871 200,000,000 dollars had 
been paid on the National debt, and in a dec- 
ade its manufacturing interests had doubled 
in value. A fire in Chicago in 1871 wiped out 
another 200,000,000 dollars, without any- 
thing more than a temj^orary inconvenience 
to 100,000 homeless peojole, who were soon 
building a city greater and fairer than the old. 
Another fire in Boston in 1872, wiped out 
80,000,000 dollars more, with results almost 
as surprising ; and, as if in proof of the fact 
that there are epidemics in calamity, there 
were during the same years vast conflagra- 
tions in the forests of the North-west, con- 
suming millions in property in lumber and 
villages, driving thousands of people before 
them, who perished by the way, or were 
driven into lakes and rivers. 

New York City had no fire, but some- 
thing quite as costly. It was discovered 



280 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

tliat a political ring had for years been rob- 
bing it of incredible amounts. The perpe- 
trators were punished and the city purified 
by a general overturning of its administra- 
tion (1873). 

All these calamities were lightly borne. 
But, — prosperity has its perils. The success 
of the lirst Pacific Road led to the building 
of another and another. Multitudes put 
their savings into these enterprises which 
were supposed to be quick roads to fortune. 
But as in almost all other kinds of pro- 
duction, the roads had outrun the needs of 
the community. The great banking house 
holding the securities of the Northern 
Pacific Road failed, then another and 
another, and there was a panic, (1873) like 
those of 1837, and 1857. This was perhaps 
a wholesome discipline. People instead of 
madly chasing fortunes, were glad to earn 
their bread by simple industry. 

In the second year of Grant's administra- 
tion, there was another war-cloud in sight. 
The refusal of England to pay for the dam- 
ages to American shipping caused by the 
Alabama, and other Confederate Cruisers, 
produced a very bitter feeling. 

The adjustment of this question it is to be 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 281 

hoped inaugurated the coming era, when 
war shall be no more. A High Commission 
composed of Statesmen and Jurists from 
both countries met at Washington, and de- 
termined to submit the questions in dispute 
between England and America to ArMtra- 
tion. 

A board of Arbitrators met at Geneva, 
Switzerland, and awarded the United States 
15,500,000 dollars for what is known as the 
Alabama claim. 

The difficulty regarding the North-west 
boundary was similarly subndtted to the 
Emperor of Germany, with a decision favor- 
able to the United States. 

The decisions themselves are of small 
moment, compared with the fact, that we 
have entered upon an era when international 
disputes instead of being settled by flying 
at each others' throats like infuriated ani- 
mals, will be quietly arranged in drawing- 
rooms, by intelligence and character, the 
best the world can afford. 

Philosox)hers predict a time when Moral 
forces, instead of physical ones, shall govern 
the world. The establishment of the prin- 
ciple of Arbitration is the longest step yet 
made toward this millennial time. The prin- 



282 HISTORY OF THE Ui^ITED STATES. 

ciple has gained in favor and in strength 
since 1872. Peace societies are everywhere 
preaching its blessed Evangel. 

It is said that the skulls of men slain in 
wars, would girdle the earth five times. 
But the Peace Societies organized by women 
alone, have in 1896 completed another girdle 
of the white wings of peace, which encircle 
the earth. They have an organization ex- 
tending to every country on the globe, and 
are represented by delegates at the Great 
Peace Parliament, held annually in Europe. 
Is it not easy to recognize in this, the ger- 
minating of one of those "moral forces," 
which are to govern the world of the 
future ? 

As was to be expected, General Grant 
ruled the country with a strong hand. 
Federal troops were freely used to put down 
disorders at the South growing out of the 
unhappy political conditions there. This 
led to a division of sentiment at the North. 
For the coming Presidential election, Horace 
Greeley was chosen as the standard bearer 
of the party desiring a more indulgent 
policy. But the tender, peace loving Jour- 
nalist was defeated, and in 1873, President 
Grant, entered upon his second term. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Centennial of the Nation was at hand. 
Preparation was made to celebrate it by a 
great Art and Industrial Exhibition at 
Philadelphia. ' ' Peace hath her victories 
not less renowned than war." — This ex- 
hibition was a memorable display of vic- 
tories achieved by human ingenuity over 
inanimate nature. Mind was asserting its 
ascendency over matter. And it was the 
American mind, which had outrun all others 
in this competitive display of inventions in 
the Palace of Industry. It was American 
genius which made the scene dazzling with 
electric lights, and it was American genius 
which had created the Telephone. Strange 
to say, it was American genius which first 
captured Electricity, and then almost made 
the new force its own ; stamx3ing itself upon 
it in ways which have altered the character 
and methods of civilization. 

Herbert Spencer says that in the matter of 
practical invention the American Nation is 



284 HISIORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

far beyond any other. Bat a mncli stronger 
statement is due to tlie fact tliat if it were 
not for Franldin^ Morse^ Edison and Bell^ 
the whole face and character of the world's 
methods Avould be changed. It is easy to 
say that others would inevitably have done 
what they did — tliat their inventions were 
in the air, and minds everywhere were about 
to grasp them. But the fact remains, 
that these men first made ]3ractical working 
realities out of those nebulous possibilities. 
And Europe, however much she may try, 
cannot throw off her burden of indebtedness 
to American genius for something which 
has affected civilization more powerfully and 
more subtly than any 23revious contribution, 
not excepting the use of steam. 

But the electric lights shone upon other 
things besides inventions. European Na- 
tions had contributed beautiful creations in 
Art work. America discovered that in 
matters of taste she had been ignorant, 
crude, and almost semi-barbarous. People 
returned to their homes with new concep- 
tions of harmony in color, form, and arrange- 
ments. Out of a craze for decoration and 
an ill-digested ^estheticism which immedi- 
ately set in, there was finally to emerge cor- 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 285 

rect standards in taste, and a fine sense of 
the Art of Beauty. 

The Centennial brought into strong relief 
that most important economic fact, that 
since 1776 we had passed through an In- 
dustrial Remlution. What brawn and 
muscle used to do, in a leisurely and small 
way, was being done by iron and steel with 
lightning swiftness, on an immense scale. 
The heli:>less infant of a century ago, had 
grown to be a young giant with tremendous 
power for good, — or for evil — no one could 
prophecy which, — nor whither these changed 
conditions, moving with such a,ccelerated 
speed, were carrying us. 

When the physical forces seem to over- 
whelm us, we can only cling more closely to 
the spiritual ones. Happily the Centennial 
year showed a corresi3onding growth in the 
higher life. Men were more merciful; 
cruelty once unobserved, was abhorrent. 
Societies for the protection of children and 
even of animals, and Institutions and Asy- 
lums for the alleviation of every kind of 
human misery abounded. Men felt greater 
res]3onsibility for the condition of others. 
The tie of human brotherhood was stronger. 
Higher conceptions of religion prevailed, 



286 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

and if there was infidelity and skepticism, 
much of it was leading into a new and fuller 
understanding of infinite truths. 

All these evidences of exj)ansion would 
have seemed in 1776, as marvellous as that a 
little fringe of territory on the Atlantic bo]'- 
der had extended to the Pacific Ocean, and 
that fifteen States had become thirty-eight, 
with territory waiting to be carved into more. 

In 1876 the Republican party nominated 
Rutherford B. Hayes, for President and 
Samuel J. Tilden was the candidate of the 
Democratic party. Both parties claimed 
the victory. The matter was referred to an 
Electoi-al Commission which decided that 
Hayes received one more Electoral vote than 
Tilden. He was therefore inaugurated in 
1877. President Hayes commenced a policy 
of conciliation towards the South, by with- 
drawing all the troops from the Southern 
States. It is said that the " Annals of the 
happy are brief." — Fortunately, there is 
little to relate of this administration, except 
the railroad riots, which assumed alarming 
proportions in 1877. 

James A. Garfield was elected in 1880 over 
the democratic candidate General Winfield 
S. Hancock. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 287 

On the morning of July 2, 1881, only four 
months after his inauguration he was shot, 
by a man of unbalanced mind, who was a 
disapj)ointed office seeker. The wounded 
President hovered for weeks between life 
and death. But the skill of surgery and the 
prayers of the nation were all unavailing. 
He died September 19, at Long Branch, New 
Jersey. 

Chester Alan Arthur, the Vice-President, 
was now President of the United States. 

The tragic death of President Garfield, led 
to the creation of a Civil Service Commission, 
which was intended in the first place simply 
to relieve the President of the great press- 
ure from applicants for office. The appli- 
cations were to be made thereafter to the Com- 
mision, which would recommend the most fit- 
ting to the President. But this Commission 
has grown far beyond its original purpose. 

The changes of the South in the twenty 
years since the war were manifested by an 
Industrial Exhibition at New Orleans in 
1884. What had once been a purely agricul- 
tural country, now had thousands of manu- 
facturing and mining enterprises. Chatta- 
nooga, Atlanta, Birmingham were threaten- 
ing to rival the North with their cotton 



288 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

mills, and their iron mills. The Sonthern 
States were throbbing with life and industry, 
and rejoicing in their own emancipation 
from the paralysis oi* slavery. 

There were no more war issues to divide 
the political parties, but they had been re- 
placed by the older issue of the tariff. 

James G. Blaine, a man of commanding 
influence and ability, had become a promi- 
nent leader of the Republican party, and a 
powerful advocate of Protection. In 1883, 
he was nominated for President in opposi- 
tion to Grover Cleveland, the Democratic 
candidate. The Republican party had con- 
trolled the policy of the country for twenty- 
four years. But now it was to pass into 
other hands. Mr. Blaine was defeated, and 
Grover Cleveland, March 4, 1885, was made 
President of the United States. 

The centre of population was rajpidly 
moving toward the Paciiic. By 1885 four 
new States had joined the Union, and before 
1896 there were to be seven more; with four 
vast territories still waiting to be absorbed 
— Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and 
Alaska. 

The New West, gridironed with steel 
roads, with steel bridges sx)anning its rivers 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 289 

and its ravines, with crowded and busy 
cities, and schools and libraries and colleges, 
and with its inexhaustible mines, and its 
wheat lields and its cattle on a thousand 
hills, — presents a i^icture of jDossibilities 
which the mind cannot grasp. 

With the development of its resources, a 
new issue has been coming into the politics 
of the Country, which threatens to over- 
shadow the tariff as a cause of strife. 

In 1870 there was a general European 
movement toward substituting a single gold 
standard for the double standard of gold 
and silver. In 1873, America came into line 
with what the rest of the world was doing, 
by an Act of Congress discontinuing the 
coining of silver dollars. The dropping of 
the silver dollar excited little attention at 
the time, because no one's interests were 
aifected by it. But almost immediately 
American silver mines began to yield enor- 
mously greater quantities of the shining 
metal. Immense fortunes were made, and 
colossal interests depended upon the remoii- 
etization of silver. Thus was created a 
burning question having no relation what- 
ever to pre-existing party issues. The ques- 
tion of North and South long ago dead, had 



290 HJSTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

been succeeded by that of the tariff. Now 
it seems as if the silver question would in 
time absorb and overshadow that, and that 
the line of cleavage may be — not between the 
North and South, as before — but an irregu- 
lar line, dividing the interests springing from 
the New West from those of the rest of the 
country. 

There are no precedents to guide in the 
administration of affairs in America. There 
are at work such immense forces, material, 
industrial and commercial, and upon a scale 
of magnitude so great, that a new danger is 
colossal in proportion. Such a danger has 
arisen in what are known as Trusts. 

In the ebb and flow from the centripetal 
to the centrifugal tendencies, we are now 
passing through a period of centralizing 
forces. 

A few years ago there set in an era of com- 
bination. Men doing business on a small 
scale found it was advantageous instead of 
wasting money and energy in competitions 
and rivalries, to combine, and work together 
with a common interest in one organization. 
The economic advantages Avere so obvious 
that the idea spread to all departments of 
industry, and even Railroads and Telegraph 



HISTORY OF THE UKITED STATES. 291 

lines united in great systems. The object 
of this was presumably to lessen the cost of 
production, and to give cheaper goods and 
fares to the peojDle. But when the people 
discovered that it was a part of the new 
method to i^egulate the price of goods and 
of fares, and not to permit them to derive 
any such advantages from it, when they 
found that a few men in control of the or- 
ganization decided what they should pay for 
their flour, their coal, and nearly all that 
they consumed, the feeling against Trusts 
grew bitter, and strong enough to form a 
new element in party strife. 

The war against Trusts is at its foundation 
a revolt against the tyranny of wealth, and 
is nearly allied to that other, and yet un- 
solved problem, — how to adjust the relations 
of labor and capital with perfect justice to 
both. The constant inflowing of an ignorant 
untrained foreign poi3ulation, increases the 
difficulty by bringing at the same time a 
stream of inflammable and dangerous ele- 
ments, men to whom revolution means op- 
portunity. The idea of Combination, has 
reached the laboring men as well as the 
Capitalists. They have their Unions, and 
Orders, and their hope lies in a wise and 



292 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

temperate leadership, which will keep them 
from destroying the sources of their own 
prosperity. In no country in the world does 
the working man have such rewards and 
advantages as here, where the movement of 
wages is upward and the hours of toil down- 
ward. 

A very striking illustration of the mod- 
ern tendency to combination is found in the 
fact, that one quarter of the people of the 
United States live in cities. This gives an 
opportunity for a few men to control the 
interests of the many, with frequent and 
flagrant abuse of such a great trust. At the 
time of writing, it seems probable that 
several contiguous cities occupying an im- 
mense area will be gathered into a ' ' Greater 
New York." It remains to be seen whether 
a plan of government can be devised to pro- 
tect such enormous interests and to prevent 
the abuse of such an opportunity for politi- 
cal ends; and it is interesting to observe 
that the first question Avhich arises, is the 
old one which rent the country in the days 
of Jefferson and Hamilton; that is, — whether 
the power shall be at tlie centre, holding 
all closely under one head, or diffused among 
many heads in a Federation of Cities. 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 293 

These are some of the dangers which 
threaten the peace of America in this clos- 
ing Nineteenth Century. They demand ripe 
judgment, a line sense of justice, and loDe ; 
in other Avords, to be dealt with in the sj)irit 
of an enliglitened Christianity, and not that 
of a money-getting paganism. Then — and 
not till then — will they cease to vex us. 

Happily these problems are to be solved, 
not by individuals, but by the people; and 
in no land is there so high an average of in- 
telligent thinking upon so wide a ilaiige of 
subjects as in America, where education is 
as free as air, and where no spot is beyond 
the irrigating streams of literature, current 
and standard, and where the door of oppor- 
tunity swings open wide for such as care to 
ascend into the higher walks of intellectual 
endeavor. It is not to the thinking of the 
cultured few that America owes her great 
debt of gratitude, but to the average think- 
ing of the whole body of its people, to which 
the cultured many contribute. That, in fact, 
is the great experiment which is being tried. 
Hitherto the cultured few have framed 
institutions for Tx.fa'vored feio. But that is 
not the way of the future! Now, political 
doctrinaires in easy chairs, or politicians in 



294 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

cancus may frame tariff legislation or what- 
ever else tliey will; but if the practical sense 
of the people rejects it, in less than four years 
it is swept out of existence. 

These larger problems in a larger life can 
never be solved except by a corresponding 
growth in those moral forces which are to 
control humanity in its higher and final 
condition. There are abundant signs that 
such forces are accumulating. The Salva- 
tion Army has swept through the land with 
a spiritual baptism, reclaiming outcasts, 
carrying light and hope into the lowest and 
darkest stratum of society. 

Another movement has rapidly developed 
a centre of spiritual force of unprecedented 
intensity. The Christian Endeavor Society 
starting fifteen years ago as a grain of mus- 
tard seed, has become a great Banyan tree. 
It has dropped its branches and taken root in 
every place in the land. JN'o organization 
has ever evinced such splendid vitality as 
this, with its mighty host of youths and 
maidens, bound together only by a common 
sympathy and a common desire for a higher 
Christian citizenship. 

Religion and Money have been the factors 
in the development of America, no less than 



HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 295 

in England. In other words, it lias been 
created by two forces, tlie one material, and 
the other spiritual. It has seemed as if the 
phenomenal material growth had outrun the 
spiritual. But, America was founded in 
Righteousness. Almost every one of its 
colonies was the outgrowth of a passionate 
spiritual craving. From its infancy in 1776 
to its stormy young manhood in 1861, it has 
seemed to be in the keeping of Angels, 
miraculously guarding, guiding and saving, 
and with a swiftly upward course, amazing 
its friends and disappointing its enemies. 
We must and we do believe in its great 
destiny; — yet with fear and trembling. 

A distinguished English critic, (Mr. 
Bryce) looking at us with cool, unpreju- 
diced eyes has recently said, — "The masses 
of America seem likely to constitute one- 
half of civilized mankind. There are those 
now living who may see before they die 
two hundreds and fifty millions of men 
dwelling between the Atlantic and the 
Pacific^ obeying the same government.^'' 

That means, — that on this majestic conti- 
nent there is to be the greatest civilization this 
world has ever seen. When we reflect that 
this race will also possess a dominion over 



296 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

nature and over universal forces never be- 
fore attained, an empire is pictured before 
which Greek, Roman, English and all 
European civilizations dwindle to insignifi- 
cance ! 

If there are some who think America 
prosaic and commonplace, and who are 
looking longingly across the ocean or into 
antiquity for their ideals, we can only say 
they have a heritage which is too large for 
them. They do not comprehend what it is 
to have a part in the greatest experiment 
yet tried by the human race. 

Every individual in the nation should feel 
a personal responsibility in fanning the flame 
of patriotism. — Love binds, — indifference 
loosens, and hatred disintegrates. Patriot- 
ism is lo'ce^ and we all know its power to 
bind. It has bound together a Continent 
which had been rent in twain, leaving 
scarcely a scar. 

Let mothers teach their sons and daugh- 
ters ^patriotism. In this land of ours that 
word has a deeper and more sacred signifi- 
cance than ever before ; for it expresses the 
hope not alone of Americans — but of Hu- 
manity. 



MARY PARMELE'S WORKS. 

Evolution of Empire Series. 

FRANCE, GERMANY, ENGLAND. 

Price, Cloth, each 60 cts.; by mail, 75 cts. 



These little books are not a series of names and 
dates, as is the case with most of the " condensed " 
histories. Mrs. Parmele has given in a charming 
manner, and with all the captivation of an interesting 
novel, a clear view of the march of events in the 
evolution of these empires. Others to follow. 



WHO? WHEN? and WHAT? 

BiBiyS-ETE VIEW OF CIVILIZATION. 
1250 TO 1850. 

Authors, Inventors, Discoverers, Artists 
and Musicians. 

Absolutely indispensable to students or teachers of 
Literature and History. 



PRICE, 50 CENTS. 
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Klemm's Relief . . . 

. . . Practice Maps. 



LIST OF MAPS. 

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North America, South America, Europe, 
Asia, Africa, Australia, Holy Land, New 
England, Middle Atlantic, South Atlantic 
and East Central States. (9^x11 inches.) 
Others to follow. 

Price, per 100, plain, $5.00 ; waterproof, $10.00 
" dozen, " .75; " 1.35 

A few old edition. North America and Holy Land, 
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United States, Roman Empire, British 
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(About 13x14 inches.) 

Price, per 100, plain, $10.00 ; waterproof, $15.00 
" " dozen, ' 1.35; " 2.00 

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Inspector Jolly discusses in a practical way such questions 
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No. 2. Physiology of Writing. 

By Dr. Javal, - - - - 25 cents. 

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IN THE STORY LAND, 

A New Book for the Kindergarten, the Sclwol, the 
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By HARRIETT LINCOLN COOLIDGE. 

Contains a series of original and instructive stories, 
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At the request of many mothers and teachers these 

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TMs book is especially suitable for Supplementary 

Readijtz in connection with Nature Lessons. 



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Little Helen's New Year's Wish. — Little Black 
Fairy, (Coal), — Mother Willow and Her Friends. 
— The Discontented Raindrop. — Maidie's Easter 
Monday. — Little Red Cap, (Squirrel). — The Violet 
and Nutshell, — The Rose Club. — How the Fairies 
Came, (Rainbow Colors). — Dear Little Brownie, 
(Chestnut). — Little Yellow and His Brothers and 
Sisters, (Maple leaf). — Jack Frost and His Fairies. 
— Harry's Thanksgiving Fairy. — Mother Spruce 
and Her Babies, (Christmas tree). — Kittie Winks 
and Bunnie Brown. 



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^~ See Opposite Page. 




COPTBIOHT, 1895, BY W. B. Haeison. 



SIMPLE LESSONS IN THE 

STUDY OF NATURE 

For the Use of Pupils, 

By ISABELLA <3r. OAKLEY. 
Illustrated. Price, 75 cents, postpaid. 

The author offers the novelty of a question book, 
with answers withheld until observation and experi- 
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book with the object in the foreground and the 
teacher behind the scenes. 

The topics are of sufficient interest to children, 
to induce them to puzzle out the conclusions which 
the lessons imply. The persevering curiosity with 
which they take their toys to pieces to see how they 
work, proves they have some ability to follow up 
Nature in her work. 

These lessons are real, all having been worked out 
inductively by little children under the instruction 
of the author, (an experienced teacher,) and by the 
novel mode of presenting them as questions to be 
studied with the object in hand, she has sought to 
relieve the teacher's work and to refrain from doing 
the pupil's thinking. 

The questions found in his own book, in periods 

assigned for preparing lessons, arouse and guide the 

child's curiosity, and prepare him to become the 

intelligent questioner when the delightful lesson 

time arrives. contents : 

Feathers. — Shells. — The Spinal Column. — Limbs of 

Some Animals. — Hands and Feet. — Eyes and 

Ears. — Teeth. — Animal Society. — Food for Young 

Plants. — Grass and Plants Like Grass. — Budding 

and Falling Leaves. — Bark. — Some Experiments 

in Combustion. — Summaries. 

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KATHARINE T. PRESCOTT'S 

FAMOUS 

BAS-RELIEFS 

WASHINGTON— Just issued. 

Longfellow, Emerson, 

Lincoln, Whittier, 

and other celebrated men to be issued 
shortly. 



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No. 59 IPiftli ^veriTae, 
NEW YORK. 



